True Potential
by blaze4071
Summary: Find out what happens when Orochimaru pushes Team 7 too far in the Forest of Death. This event not only changes our favorite genin cell but also the Ninja world. YES this is the story I started in 2010.
1. Chapter 1

I'LL SAY THIS NOW AND IN A LATER CHAPTER. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE STORY, QUIT READING OR WRITE YOUR OWN. THANKS.

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic speech"**

'**Kyubi/demonic/ inner Sakura thoughts'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

'This grass nin is crazy' thought Sasuke as he dodged another blow from his opponent. 'Not only did he come here on his own, but he managed to kill the dope before the fight even started…were in trouble' was his only conclusion as his sharingan enabled him to dodge another blow while Sakura watched from a distance not sure how to help her crush.

Sasuke wouldn't show it but he was tiring fast. 'Darn it!' looking back he saw Sakura a bit behind him and decided it was best to run. Facing back towards their grass nin assailant Sasuke created the hand seals that were all but natural to him, as he finished he exhaled his held breath with the cry of his attack "Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu". With that a large fireball made its way to its target, Sasuke, not wanting to stick around grabbed Sakura and ran till he could find somewhere to hide.

When they found a spot to hide, Sakura couldn't help but ask "Sasuke-kun, are you alri" Sakura's words of concern were cut short as Sasuke covered her mouth. 'We must run before we are found again' Sasuke thought while he caught his breath 'but how…how can we run away?' Next to him Sakura had her own thoughts 'for Sasuke-kun to panic this much…I've never seen him like this' "hmmp!" Sakura cried before she got out of Sasuke's hold "Snake!" was all she had time to say before both she and Sasuke leapt away with the fairly large snake that seemed to appear out of nowhere and was now following Sasuke.

'I was so afraid that I didn't notice the snake' it was after that thought that Sasuke saw the grass nin's image appear behind the snake's "Get away!" he cried as he launched both kunai and shuriken at the monster. The weapons pierced through the snake's head countless times, nailing the snake to a tree branch undoubtedly dead.

Sasuke's rest was short lived, however as the snake's corpse quaked and out from it came the very nin he was afraid of. The nin charged at Sasuke wrapping around the tree branch like he himself was a snake only to be stopped short as kunai and shuriken were embedded into the tree right where the grass nin would've been half a second later.

"Sorry Sasuke, I forgot your codeword" as everyone looked in the direction the kunai flew from. 'N-Naruto!' both Sasuke and Sakura thought happy to see their teammate alive.

"Well, it seems that you've defeated that snake I sent after you" their enemy said as he was already atop another snake as large as the one Naruto had defeated earlier "you should've ran when you had the chance!" he sneered as the snake whipped Naruto into the air before Naruto knew what was happening.

Naruto was slammed into a tree. "you may eat him." The grass nin said casually as the snake closed in on Naruto.

'I'm not about to be eaten again!' Naruto thought as everything slowed down, his pain subsided, and Naruto felt a lot stronger, as the snake closed in Naruto pulled back his fist and slammed it into the snake right where its nose was however the snakes momentum still sent Naruto flying back.

'Those eyes… so the kyubi brat is still alive, this _is_ interesting' the grass nin thought as Naruto landed on the ground the nin turned his attention back to Sasuke "Sasuke-kun now it's your turn! What will you do?!" said the nin as his snake charged at a frozen Sasuke.

The charging snake however was stopped dead by Naruto just as it was in front of Sasuke and Sakura, Naruto locked eyes with Sasuke and said the only thing that came to mind "hey… you…alright… scaredy cat?" as what looked like the grass nin's wrapped around Naruto and pulled him towards the nin 'sorry Naruto-kun but I want more fun with Sasuke-kun kukuku' the nin thought as it made hand signs slamming them into Naruto's exposed stomach "five part seal!" with that Naruto fell unconscious.

Meanwhile the words Naruto spoke to Sasuke were having a huge effect on him, first he thought about their mission in the land of waves and how he used the same sentence on Naruto after saving him from the demon brothers' attack, and then he thought of his older brother and his final words that night.

"Foolish brother…if you want to kill me... then hate, spite, And survive pathetically! Run and run… and cling desperately to life..." 'No!' Sasuke mentally screamed as he was filled with both the desire to kill his brother and protect his friends, he slowly opened his eyes to reveal two fully evolved sharingan eyes leaving the grass nin in shock 'so he managed to fully evolve his sharingan not only in the middle of a fight but bypassing two other stages as well…I must have him!' the grass nin thought.

Before the grass nin could do anything he was snared to a tree via ninja wire and Sasuke was done forming hand seals 'ugh, when did he!?' "Katon Ryuuka no jutsu!" screamed Sasuke as flames wrapped around him before flying towards the trapped grass nin using the ninja wire as a guide blowing a hole through and incinerating the tree behind the captured nin.

Sasuke jumped down from the tree he was on to the ground facing Sakura who's face of relief was suddenly full of fear "kukuku Sasuke you shouldn't let your guard down in the middle of battle!" the nin said behind Sasuke as he attempted to stab at the back of Sasuke's turned head with a kunai.

'I didn't' Sasuke smirked as the kunai hit its mark and then continued through as if nothing was there "What?!" screamed the nin "it's called an afterimage" Sasuke answered glad that he was able to catch Lee use it in their previous spar before the exams with his sharingan. Sasuke's hands stopped in the tiger seal still wearing his smirk "Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu"Sasuke said only a few feet from the grass nin.

Sasuke knew something was wrong as soon as he saw the nin smile 'what the?' Sasuke's unasked question was answered as the nin jumped out of the way to reveal Naruto, who was planning to attack the nin from behind, Sasuke watched in horror as the fireball crashed through trees and out of sight taking Naruto with it.

"Naruto!" Sakura screamed as Sasuke fell to his knees 'I-I-I killed him' Sasuke thought as the world left him and darkness was in its place 'I…killed…him'

The nin was calmly approaching Sasuke ready to deliver the gift he had for the last Uchiha only to be stopped by another Kunai 'when will these nuisances end? He thought before he looked to the source of the kunai to find a girl with pink hair staring at him, she was obviously scared out of her wits. As the nin looked up at her Sakura could see that his face was seriously burned "w-what are you?" she asked "kukuku, to think that Sasuke-kun blew off my little mask" the nin said "it's not what but who little girl, I am Orochimaru."

With the introduction the now named sannin did the impossible and ripped off his own face to reveal an older man with pale skin and yellow eyes that resembled a snake, not paying much attention to Sakura Orochimaru looked at the sky above them "Looks like I still have a bit of time to play." And with that he made some hand signs and stopped only to look at Sakura and smirk.

Sakura who had been anticipating a jutsu was surprised to see that nothing happened, instead of an attack she was greeted by Orochimaru's smile before he appeared next to Sasuke, who was still stricken by Naruto's death, with his hands around Sasuke's head. Sakura watched as the snake sannin turned towards her again with a sadistic smile on his face before quickly moving his arms, one forward the other back, snapping Sasuke's neck.

"NOOO!" was all Sakura could say as tears fell down her face 'he can't be dead, he can't be dead!' she cried from inside.

"**Wake up flesh bag" **'huh… where am I?' slowly Naruto got up from his position unable to remember where he was or what he was doing. The fact that somehow he was in a sewer was aiding to his confusion.

"**Come here" **the voice sounded again echoing through the tunnels. Naruto slowly turned around searching for the source of the sound **"Over hear"** it whispered again, this time it didn't echo as the voice wasn't strong enough allowing Naruto to pin point the source. Quickly running through the tunnel the sound had come from he found himself in front of a large cell with a note that had the word "Seal" written on it. **"Come closer boy" **the voice said again as softly as the last time it spoke.

Sensing the power behind the bars ahead of him and the fact that it was sealed gave Naruto enough sense to say "I don't think so." With that a claw twice as long as Naruto was tall came through the cell between the bars in order to strike Naruto, unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, the claws missed Naruto by an inch. Naruto on the other hand was glad he didn't get any closer and decided to back away some more. **"Foolish mortal come here so I can kill you!" **the being behind the bars raged. Clueless to who he was talking to Naruto responded "Saying you're going to kill me isn't going to make me come closer" with that the last thing Naruto had expected happened, the voice behind the cell laughed.

"**You idiot, do you have any idea who you are talking to?" **the monster said "No but I get the feeling you're going to tell me" again laughter was heard **"Fool! I am the mighty Kitsune, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox!" **Naruto froze "The K-Kyubi**, **no you're supposed to be sealed inside me how did you get out!" **"you idiot!" **the Kyubi laughed **"we are not outside, for if we were I would've killed you by now…no we are inside your mindscape and as you can see, there isn't much here." **The Kyubi chided.

Naruto was dense to many things but he has been insulted before and was quick to return the favor "So what you're saying Kyubi-sama," he mocked "Is that an empty minded twelve year old has been holding you captive for as long as he's been alive, right?"

Naruto finished emphasizing his last word. The comment earned another laugh from the powerful demon **"You amuse me kid, maybe being your prisoner may not be so bad after all" **the Kyubi gave a fox like grin showing a massive fang. "Well now that we're on the subject, how about paying some rent as me and my team have some maniac trying to kil… oh No!" realization dawned on Naruto "Sakura-chan, Sasuke! Are they dead; am I dead, how long have I been dead? Crap!" again the demon laughed at Naruto, the twelve year old was really making his day. Deciding to be generous he answered the blonds questions in the order asked. **"Well let's see, No, Nope, You've been unconscious for about five minutes in your world, and for your previous question I'd love to give you the power to destroy that snake bastard but he sealed off my power from you." **The fox paused as an idea came to him

"**However, I do know how to get rid of him with the chakra you still have left **_**and**_** play the biggest prank in the history of the ninja world while you're at it. **_**Interested**_**?"** after the Kyubi told Naruto his plan both wore a wide grin on their faces. **"You know what to do, now… wake up!" **and with that Naruto was pushed out of his mind.

Five minutes ago…

"NOOO!" was all Sakura could say as tears fell down her face 'he can't be dead, he can't be dead!' she cried from inside. **"Shhh it's ok, it's ok" **Sakura's inner self said as it tried to help her more emotional self. "Well little girl how does it feel, being the last one alive on your little team?" Orochimaru spoke knowing that he was crushing the young Kunoichi.

What Orochimaru failed to notice was the slightest increase in killing intent from the young girl before as he laughed. "Don't worry," he continued "you can tell them how pathetic they were in death because you're next." He finished while walking towards Sakura. Sakura's head was down and she didn't realize what was happening as she was still in shock. Meanwhile inner Sakura was on the rampage **"I'LL KILL YOU!" **inner Sakura screamed. "I'll kill you." Sakura said softly as a bit more killing intent left her.

Inner Sakura was surprised as her other half repeated her words, something that never happens. "What was that?" Orochimaru continued oblivious to the minor killing intent coming from Sakura. "Were you just saying how weak your teammates were?" He smirked, fully enjoying the way the girl before was shaking. **"I said" **Inner Sakura started "I s-said" Sakura followed _**"I'LL KILL YOU!" **_they finished together, merging in both mind and spirit, Sakura's true form was released.

Orochimaru stopped two steps away from Sakura when he heard those words, it wasn't her words that worried him it was the fact that now was when he noticed her shaking wasn't due to fear 'oh, that's odd' he thought 'but if it isn't fear then what is it then...rage?' at that instant he noticed it, Sakura's killing intent… rising.

"What the" was all Orochimaru could get out as he was blown back. Sakura's merger with her inner self finally finished, her killing intent combined with her newly unlocked chakra, blasted Orochimaru back into one of the many trees behind him while also causing a small crater to form on the ground directly below Sakura. Orochimaru, from his end, could feel her power, as he looked into her emerald eyes he saw that they were glowing slightly as if promising to make good the threat she made earlier.

From Sakura's end she was surprised to find how at peace she was, like a void had been filled, and yet she knew something was missing. 'Sasuke-kun, Naruto…' she remembered glaring at the one who caused her suffering "you're dead" she stated. Before she could act however, her world shattered like glass.

Orochimaru was having a lot of fun; first he saw Sasuke push his sharingan to its mature stage through sheer will power and actually received some real damage from Sasuke's attacks, and then the Kyubi brat showed some raw power if not promise only to be roasted by his own teammate's attack. Orochimaru then ended his little game by placing the useless girl in a genjutsu that was bound to break her spirit and end her ninja career.

'Oh my, I really love these games but everything must come to an end…well except me of course" Orochimaru thought happily 'and I still have more than enough chakra to give Sasuke-kun the curse seal' he finished while walking towards his true prey.

Three steps into his stride Orochimaru felt it, his sixth sense that alerted a veteran fighter to danger, but unlike any before he was worried because this feeling scared him. With his extra sense and quickness Orochimaru attempted to jump away but was nowhere near fast enough to dodge the fist that slammed into his face turning Orochimaru into a rocket aimed at a large stone away from Sasuke.

'That felt like a punch from Tsunade when we were younger' Orochimaru thought. he knew he couldn't dodge the fist so Orochimaru's only other option was to apply as much chakra to the point of impact to reduce the damage. He looked up ready to kill whoever dared to attack him while he was having fun only to stare into Sakura's glowing green eyes and outstretched right arm that obviously delivered the punch a second ago.

'How did she get out of that jutsu?' Orochimaru thought 'And this power rivals a sixteen year old Tsunade, she's only twelve… looks like I have another recruit' he smiled before launching himself at Sakura who was defending Sasuke. Looking back at her crush Sakura said the first thing that came to mind "Wake up idiot!"

'I killed Naruto' Sasuke thought. The idea of killing his teammate and, though he wouldn't say it, best friend was eating away at Sasuke while he wandered in darkness. 'I killed him' "Sasuke" Sasuke turned, though hearing his name meant nothing to him, the voice did. Even though it was merely a whisper Sasuke new that voice from somewhere. "Sasuke" he turned in search for the voice.

As Sasuke followed the voice through the darkness he failed to notice the new source of light until he was right next to it "Sasuke" the voice called out once more. Sasuke looked up for the first time since he started walking to look straight into the face of his mother Mikoto.

"Mom?" Sasuke whispered, and then everything that had happened since the Uchiha massacre came to surface and Sasuke's carefully constructed wall that held his emotions crumbled. "Mom!" Sasuke cried as he wrapped his arms around her and cried. "Sasuke, what's wrong my son?" Mikoto asked her youngest child. "I thought you were dead!" Sasuke cried even louder "an…and I killed my friend…my…only friend" Sasuke said as he quieted down though his tears were still flowing.

"Sasuke it's not your fault." Mikoto said "and your other friend needs you now." Sasuke looked at his mother's face confused "other friend?" he asked. "Yes" Mikoto said with a small smile "Sakura" Sasuke said softly attempting to recall the name, then it hit him "Sakura!"

Jumping up and in a fighting stance Sasuke was looking in the darkness waiting for an attack and looking for Sakura at the same time. "Where am I?" Sasuke asked "where's Sakura?" he almost yelled. Mikoto watched with a smile as her son worried over his friend's safety. "Sasuke calm down" Mikoto started gaining Sasuke's attention and to her amusement he calmed as well.

"She's calling for you Sasuke, that man is the cause of your pain, if it wasn't for him your other friend would not have died so soon. Sasuke, because of what that man did you have to help stop him, you must use your sharingan to a level that even your brother has not reached." Mikoto finished. Then sensing the killing intent from Sasuke after mentioning Itachi she decided to add something else "Sasuke, when you are out of this mess I need to recall everything about that night, I know you don't want to but you must to make yourself stronger." Sasuke was about to retort when he noticed that Mikoto started to disappear. "Mom!" Sasuke yelled "Sasuke, my time is almost up. I'm dead son and nothing you can do will change that. You must live on and bring your brother back from the darkness." Mikoto said as she was now transparent.

"What do you me…?" Sasuke asked but was cut short when Mikoto spoke again for the last time "Sasuke there are more things hidden in the ninja world than you can understand, for now I have given you a key to unlock one of those secrets. Now help your friend and be the ninja that the Uchiha clan can be proud of. Goodbye my son." And with that Mikoto faded completely and Sasuke was back in the forest of death.

The first sound Sasuke heard when he regained consciousness was the sound of a tree being snapped in half. Fearing the worst for Sakura he slowly looked up to be greeted by a sight that he would never forget even if he wanted to because his sharingan was still activated. Standing protectively over him was Sakura with her arm extended, following the path of her arm he found Orochimaru's body climbing out of a small crater in stone.

'Sakura did that?' Sasuke thought as Orochimaru continued to climb out of the crater and faced Sakura with a face that Sasuke didn't like, one of desire and the same one he gave Sasuke. Orochimaru then charged at the pair dividing his chakra so he could give both children the curse seal.

"Wake up idiot!" Sakura yelled at Sasuke knowing she couldn't fight on her own. 'If it wasn't for him your other friend would not have died so soon. Sasuke, because of what that man did you have to help stop him, you must use your sharingan to a level that even your brother has not reached.' remembering his mother's words Sasuke rose back up, eyes focused on tracking Orochimaru's speed before his vision shifted and everything slowed even more than before making Orochimaru travel at the speed of a crawl to him.

Flashing through seals as fast as he could, which was also slow in his eyes, he called forth another fire jutsu. "Katon: Hosenka no jutsu" he said as multiple fireballs shot from his mouth.

Sasuke's sudden revival surprised Orochimaru as he was now focusing his chakra to evade the small fireballs. Sasuke's sharingan however made dogging the fireballs difficult. Shooting off three more blast predicting Orochimaru's path and setting up his last trap as he was almost out of chakra (not including what he needs to live) Sasuke made his last set of hand seals "Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu" and once more the massive fireball appeared.

Orochimaru was pissed. Not only had the Uchiha started fighting again but he could now predict his moves to the point of where his inferior speed was no longer a real issue from a distance. 'If this keeps up I'll only be able to give him the curse seal' Orochimaru thought as he dogged the last small fireball.

Looking up, Orochimaru looked at the massive fireball in front of his face with no time to dodge or escape with a jutsu. 'Damn' Orochimaru thought as he went crashing back again. After the fireball stopped the now burned Orochimaru shed his skin and reappeared uninjured but slow on charka. 'I've played too much' he thought while forming hand seals and launching his head and now elongated neck straight for Sasuke intent on delivering his curse seal at a speed that even if Sasuke could see it he wouldn't be able to move in time.

Orochimaru was so focused on Sasuke that he didn't notice Sakura had traversed to distance to his body until he felt a powerful blow to the gut an inch away from Sasuke's neck and was sent crashing through the trees again.

"That's it!" Orochimaru yelled releasing all his remaining chakra and full killing intent freezing the young Gennin "Sasuke! You will be mine!" he yelled moving even faster than before only to be stopped in his tracks.

Same time in Konohagakure (konoha):

Civilians and ninja alike all stopped in shock and fear as a massive wave of charka washed over the land; though not Kage level it was close.

Nearby the forest of death Anko fell, or more likely was forced out of her chair by the amount of chakra coming from inside the forest. Slowly getting up she ordered the Chunnin nearby to inform the Hokage and alert the Anbu before entering the forest hoping there wasn't any trouble.

Inside the forest:

Both Hinata and Neji had their Byakugan active when the chakra hit temporarily blinding both. Akamaru was hiding in Kiba's jacket while Shino's bugs rested inside him after suddenly being filled with chakra. The Ino, Shika, Cho trio were blasted away from the chakra source and decided to get as far from it as they could.

Everyone in the forest away from team 7 all moved away from the group. Gaara's team was neutral as he wanted to fight the power that rivaled his own but decided to fight him in the next stage of the exams, after all there was bound to be one on one fighting eventually.

Hinata had her own thought while her team was racing away from the fight. 'Naruto, please be alright'.

Team 7 and Orochimaru

Orochimaru's neck was back to normal as he stood in fear of the chakra release and had he paid attention it was only slightly larger than his own, however the only thing registering in his brain was '_Run, really really fast!' _as he was looking into the eyes of the Kyubi.

"**Hello flesh bag" **the Kyubi said with its fangs visible in a smile.

A/N:

Well that's it for now. This is my first fanfic so I decided to get some feedback from my first chapter before deciding to continue or not.

Plans:

There will be pairings naruxhina, sasuxsaku, tentenxneji, and some others when I get to them and most likely not in that order.

I follow the manga and am therefore up to date with what is going on in the real Naruto universe and my story will pick and choose elements from the manga universe.

Finally I'm not really in favor of a godlike Naruto. That being said people will get hurt and chakra will run low in large battles. If I make one character strong others will follow soon or there will be a limitation.

That's it please review:


	2. The Cherry Blossom Strikes!

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic/ inner Sakura speech"**

'**Kyubi/demonic/ inner Sakura thoughts'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

Last Time:

Orochimaru attacked team 7, Naruto dies in the cross fire between Sasuke and Orochimaru. Sakura escapes from a genjutsu with a lot more firepower and Sasuke hits Orochimaru head on with a Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu only to piss Orochimaru off. Finally, Orochimaru's attempt at branding Sasuke with the curse seal was thwarted when a large charka source explodes leaving the snake sannin staring face to face with the Kyubi, the nine tailed demon fox.

Chapter 2: The Cherry Blossom Strikes!

"**Hello flesh bag."** The Kyubi spoke glaring at Orochimaru, its tails waving behind him **"I've been waiting to kill someone for over 12 years." **The demon said with smile.

Just off to the side, nearly a foot from the demon's front left paw stood Sasuke and Sakura. Sakura's new found strength left her the instant the Kyubi showed up and looking at Sasuke she could tell he wasn't fairing any better as his sharingan faded back to his onyx eyes.

"Don't move." Sasuke whispered to Sakura as he felt her tremble next to him. "If we're lucky, the Kyubi will chase Orochimaru giving us a chance to find Naruto and get out of here." He finished receiving a nod of approval from Sakura.

Orochimaru was in bad shape; he played with the children too long and had nowhere near enough chakra to fight against the demon before him. 'Damn' he thought while weighing his options.

Orochimaru's time to think was cut short as the Kyubi raised a paw ready to strike. Deciding on his best choice of living Orochimaru performed his transportation jutsu that allowed him to sink into the earth and travel underground not caring where he ended up so long as he was as far away from the Kyubi as possible.

An instant before the Kyubi's hand came crashing down on Orochimaru the snake sannin had completely disappeared underground while traveling at high speeds.

Expecting the ground to quake under the Kyubi's assault, Sasuke and Sakura were surprised when the ground didn't shake at all. Before they could think about why the Kyubi's attack wasn't strong enough to create a crater, the Kyubi turned its head and looked directly at them.

'We can't run and we can't fight' both Sasuke and Sakura thought, "Sakura…get out of here" Sasuke said while sliding into his Uchiha fighting stance "Now!" he demanded as soon as he felt her about to argue.

"We can't win, and I won't lose another friend while I'm still alive." Sasuke finished as he knew she would press the issue.

Sakura knew he wouldn't let her talk while he was so worked up trying to protect her, so instead she walked up to him resting a hand on his shoulder. "Sasuke…Naruto was my friend too, and I can't stand to lose you either now." Sakura whispered to him before giving him a small hug from behind and returning to his side in her own fighting stance.

The Kyubi watched the pair interact and heard the words they said. **"So you two have chosen to die protecting the other?"** it asked.

"Yes" Sasuke said while pulling out two kunai. "We already lost one of our friends... and as long as we can fight we won't allow anyone else to be taken from us." Sakura finished Sasuke's thoughts.

"**Good"** the Kyubi replied shocking both kids with its smile before it disappeared in a puff of smoke revealing Naruto.

"Looks like I finally got the Henge jutsu down, hee hee" Naruto stated.

Sasuke was wide eyed and Sakura was on a warpath ready to really kill the blonde for scaring her so badly. Sakura fully believed that she was about to die and the prankster had the nerve to laugh. Her temper however dropped the same time Naruto fell over unconscious. "Naruto!" Sakura cried running up to check on him. Sasuke was also right next to Naruto worried about his friend.

As the two were watching over Naruto Anko, who was following the large chakra source, finally arrived. "What happened here?" She ordered. Upon her demand the two conscious kids told Anko everything that happened.

Once Sasuke got to Naruto's last words Anko threw a laughing fit at which Sasuke was confused as to what was so funny. "That blonde idiot…scared off a sannin…with a burst of chakra and…and a henge!" Anko cried between fits of laughter. "He just…pulled the biggest…p prank in…the history of Konoha!" Anko finished in tears.

Three Minutes Later:

Once Anko had calmed down from her laughing fit Sakura asked the special Jonin to check on the blonde. After a quick check with her limited medical skills, Anko came to a conclusion.

"He's alright, but he is dangerously low on chakra, other than that I can't help you as you are still in the middle of an exam." Anko finished looking sorry for not being able to help further, after all these young Genin survived an attack from a sannin with mostly minor injuries while the blond had small burn marks that were already healing and singed clothes.

"Well I have to report this to the Hokage." Anko said while leaving silently wishing the team good luck.

As soon as Anko left Sasuke told Sakura that they would have to leave the area as the fight probably created a lot of attention. Agreeing, Sakura was ready to go as soon as Sasuke picked up the unconscious Naruto and left the battle ground where they had just fought for their lives…and each other.

That night:

Team 7 landed next to a large tree which was hollow at the base believing it was the best place as any to hide for the time being. Once Sasuke set Naruto down he took two steps before falling over on his own.

Seeing Sasuke fall Sakura was quick to catch him and set him down next to Naruto. 'Both of them have used up most of their chakra' she thought "Looks like it's my turn to watch over you guys" she said with a small smile.

Sakura walked out from under the tree and into the night sky. Looking at the stars, Sakura once again felt at peace. When Sakura was content with not sensing any other chakra besides her team's in the area she relaxed even more.

"**We need to talk" **inner Sakura stated to her other half.

'Can't it wait till later?' Sakura asked mentally

"**There will not be a later…this will be the last time we speak like this"** inner Sakura replied in a soft tone.

'What's going on?' Sakura was confused and worried after hearing the last statement.

"**We are merging, in fact it's almost complete" **her inner self began, **"haven't you noticed the change in yourself…you called Sasuke an idiot and you were even willing to and actually did fight an S-class ninja." **Inner Sakura finished.

"What's wrong with that?" Sakura asked not seeing the downside to being a bit stronger.

"**You won't be you as you are now and I won't exist once it is over." **inner Sakura explained **"**_**We **_**will be one; our strengths, weakness, and personalities will merge together. We'll become something in between" **Inner Sakura finished with a smile.

"What!" Sakura screamed. "I don't want to be different…I don't want to be anything other than me" she said quietly, her eyes filling with tears. Even though Sakura was still picked on and her confidence was low compared to Ino's she still liked her role in life and couldn't see it any differently.

"**Quit whining" **Inner Sakura said getting annoyed **"If anything you'll be the person you were before you started getting teased about your forehead and turning into a simple fan-girl." **Sure inner Sakura liked Sasuke but she didn't worship him as he could be a jerk. Their last fight however had loosened that opinion a bit.

"**Sakura, it doesn't matter whether you want to or not. You already had a glimpse of your true self without your normal limitations of being a fan-girl, and as part of you I know you liked it. In a few hours, the merger will finish, trust me; you won't notice any real difference. I won't say good bye. Instead I'll say, let's become the strongest we can to protect our friends." **Inner Sakura finished, as she fell silent Sakura could feel the presence of her inner self being absorbed. Sakura meanwhile had a few things to think about.

The next morning (day 2 of the second exam):

The night had been relatively quiet, still not trusting the peace to last forever Sakura spent part of the night setting up traps around team 7's hideout. Neither boy was up yet but Sakura knew she had to protect her teammates while they recovered.

'Maybe I could get a scroll before they manage to wake up.' Sakura thought as she was guarding the entrance to the tree hiding the resting forms of Naruto and Sasuke.

Elsewhere in the Forest of Death:

"Lee, Tenten we're stopping here." Neji said with authority. Both of his teammates stopped. One wearing too much green with his black hair cut in a bowl shape around his head, the other wore a pink Chinese style shirt, her brown hair was made up in two separate buns, and she had black ninja styled pants. They were up fairly early and had been making their way towards the tower at the center of the forest for the past hour

"What is it my youthful teammate?" Lee asked using the same style of speech as his instructor, who for all intents and proposes was an older version of Lee and even more insane.

"We should split up for now and meet back here in an hour." Neji replied stoic as ever, his white eyes gave nothing away of his emotions.

"Sounds good." Tenten's agreement came while she threw down a kunai into the tree limb they were standing on to mark their current position. "One hour."

"Ready?" Neji asked, receiving nods from his team. "Very well, go" and just like that they were gone.

Team 10:

"Kagemane no jutsu!" Shikamaru claimed as his shadow extended to where their opponents shadows were completely freezing the mist ninja in their tracks.

Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji were worse for wear, after noticing that either team held the needed scroll to continue with the exams all hell had broke loose. Luckily for team 10, Shikamaru was able to formulate a plan on the fly for once and even though they were beaten up Ino and Choji managed to get the rock nin close enough for Shikamaru to catch all of them with his shadow, paralyzing them and allowing Choji to knock them all out while Ino searched for the scroll on the female of the rock team.

"Yeah!" Ino cheered while remembering the blast of chakra the night before "Now let's find Sasuke-kun and see if he's ok!" Choji was ready to follow the blonde while Shikamaru muttered something about troublesome fan-girls and together team 10 took off behind Ino in their search for team 7.

Team 8:

"Let's go Akamaru!" Kiba shouted tossing his dog a soldier pill turning its fur red "Jujin Bunshin, Gatsuga!" Both partners transformed into a bestial looking Kiba and turning into mini cyclones, both tearing into a pair of their attackers.

'Go' Shino commanded his bugs while releasing them to feed on the chakra of the remaining nin who tried to ambush them. All three attackers fell at the same time unconscious while Kiba grabbed the scroll they had been searching for. Hinata was depressed as her teammates had fought without her and didn't even look like they needed assistance making her feel even weaker. Luckily, Shino and Kiba both noticed and decided to cheer their female teammate up.

"Hinata, how bout we go check on team 7?" Shino spoke "I placed a female bug on a member of each team so finding the one on Naruto shouldn't be a problem."

"What!" Kiba yelled "you were tracking everyone this whole time!"

"Yes" Shino answered as if it were a matter of fact "I even placed one on you in case you got lost". This left Kiba on the ground in tears mumbling something about no faith.

"N-no" Hinata stammered while her face turned a slight red as she thought of the orange wearing ninja. "W-we should move on to the tower." Hinata finished, even though she adored Naruto she wouldn't allow it to cloud her judgment, well at least not too much. After receiving a nod from both her teammates they took off in the direction of the tower.

Team 7

"Awe, look at the little pinkie" Kin said as she and the rest of her team landed in front of Sakura waking her from her sleep, or at least that's what Sakura wanted them to think as some of the traps she set the other night were made for the sole purpose of informing her of intruders and Sakura was already on high alert.

"Get out of the way girl unless you want to die." Zaku said with a menacing smirk on his face "We have orders to kill the Uchiha brat and anyone who gets in the way, leave now and we won't kill you." 'Yet' Zaku finished looking ready to fight at any moment.

Sakura saw the team and their position, she then threw three kunai which were horribly off course and the three stood there watching the girl who was too frightened to throw a kunai straight.

"What was that pinkie?" Kin started to ask before looking at Sakura and seeing her small smile.

'This can't be good' Kin thought with worry and fear written on her face and jumping while shouting at her teammates to move.

Following Kin's leap Dosu, the apparent leader jumped as well while Zaku looked in the direction his teammates went and finding the cause to their worry as a large log was rocketing towards him. With no time to dodge Zaku pushed chakra into his arms shouting "Zankuha!" as the name of the attack suggested, the log was split in two as a massive amount of air rushed over it.

"Is that all…" Zaku tried to taunt only for the second kunai to reach its mark and the lose rope wrapped around Zaku's leg and hung him upside down in the air suspended by a nearby tree. "Ghaa, you'll pay for this. You'll be the first to die!" Zaku spat

"Try it!" Sakura yelled back watching as her last kunai hit its target and the ground where Dosu was about to land caved in revealing a trap hole with various sharp objects in it. 'Oh crap' Dosu mentally cursed and was able to catch himself on the side of the wall with the aid of chakra 'She's dead.' Dosu was now pissed.

"Two down one to guh…" Sakura's assessment was cut short as she was pulled rather harshly by her hair.

"Nice going pinkie" Kin said "you just jumped to the top of our kill list" pulling on Sakura's hair even harder causing tears to fall from Sakura's eyes from the pain. Kin held her roughly until the other boys were out of their little traps. They would take their time in torturing the girl for their embarrassment.

"Well who wants her first?" Kin asked tossing Sakura to Zaku after he gave her a look that said that he had first dibs or he would kill Kin instead. Zaku hit Sakura hard in the jaw sending her to Dosu who in turn hit her with his left arm sending her to Kin, not wanting to use the amplifier on his right arm, once Sakura got back to Kin she was kicked towards Zaku again and the cycle continued.

Inner Sakura was having a fit about the abuse but as of now all she could do was wait till the time for the merger was over, well she could count down till that time which just so happened to be 5…4…

Sakura had made three more rotations around the painful triangle only to be held in place with Kin pulling on her hair.

"Look at all this fine hair; you care more about your looks than being a kunoichi. How bout we cut off your pretty pink hair? I doubt it's even real." Kin said trying to scare the girl.

"You know" Sakura said while grabbing another kunai from her pouch "that's not a bad idea!" reaching up Sakura cut her hair away releasing her from Kin's grip and turning on her heels towards Kin delivering a punch that sent the sound girl flying while passing a green blur who was going to jump in until his instincts told him to wait. All of this happened before either sound boy could make a move.

"Who's next?!" Sakura half screamed half asked, her eyes glowing as if there was a raging fire underneath them.

"Die" Zaku screamed "Zankukyokuha!" Zaku was intending to not only kill the girl but to annihilate her and anything behind her. Zaku's attack was of the same class as the one he used to split the log earlier only way bigger and was capable of tearing into the ground as well. After the attack was over Zaku saw that he had completed his goal of destroying everything in front of him and could not see the pink haired girl he was attacking.

"Well, that takes care of that." Zaku said happily.

"Takes care of what?" A voice asked behind him.

"Why you!" Zaku yelled turning to hit the pink haired girl who was proving to be a real pain to handle.

Sakura was too close for Zaku to fire off another jutsu so instead both began a taijutsu bout. Every punch Sakura threw was caught or deflected by Zaku and vice-versa. Suddenly Sakura's leg whipped out hitting Zaku's own leg and knocking him off balance, before Sakura could capitalize though Zaku did a sweeping kick to Sakura's legs and using the momentum to right himself back up. Both combatants looked at each other briefly before returning to their taijutsu match.

Dosu was watching the match carefully; the girl was beaten, bruised, and ready for death a minute ago. Somehow she almost pulled a complete 180 on them and was now evenly fighting Zaku in hand to hand combat a feat even Dosu had a hard time with. Wanting to end the battle quickly he jumped into the fray while sending chakra into the device on his right arm.

Dosu's attack came completely unnoticed by Sakura and he sent her flying back. As soon as she landed she was back on her feet and was ready to attack again before she fell to one knee completely dizzy.

"You like?" Dosu asked explaining to Sakura his ability of manipulating sound waves into his opponent's ears bursting their ear drums and causing them to be nauseas.

"Zaku, finish her off now so we can eliminate the target." Dosu ordered to which Zaku was happy to oblige.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." A voice called out to the sound ninja. As three figures appeared in front of Sakura, Dosu and Zaku saw that the voice came from a blonde girl wearing purple with a large and skinny teammate on either side of her. Neither sound nin was warned of them and therefore didn't see a threat.

"I agree." Came another voice as a green blur stopped in front of team 8. Lee was done watching after the cheap shot Dosu got in and was ready to even the odds.

"Or else what?" Zaku asked shifting his right arm towards the newly arrived group.

"Or else you'll both be dead before you hit the ground." Another voice threatened from atop a tree. Neji Hyuuga stood with his arms crossed and his byakugan active. Another girl wearing pink stood to his side with kunai drawn, the only difference between her and the previous pink wearing girl was that this one looked like a real ninja.

"You mess with one of my teammates and I will not spare you." Neji added to his threat

"Why don't you come down here and prove that you have the power." Dosu yelled at the Hyuuga thoroughly pissed at the intrusion and now wanted to fight everyone in the small clearing.

Neji was about to follow through with his threat before his byakugan caught some movement and in response he deactivated his byakugan with a small smirk.

"It seems…that won't be necessary." Neji commented

"What do you mean…" Zaku was cut short as a fist slammed into his gut causing him to lose all the air in his lungs and Zaku staggered back a few steps.

"Sakura who did that to you?" the newcomer asked. Turning everyone saw that Sasuke was now awake, sharingan ablaze, though Sakura saw something was wrong with it.

"Sasuke?" Sakura started only for Sasuke to interrupt her.

"Who is it?" Sasuke said only to receive a hit to the back of his head "Hey, that…" Sasuke said as he turned towards Sakura who had hit him only for his eyes to widen as he saw full furry coming from Sakura, for the fourth time in his life Sasuke feared for his life.

"Interrupt me again and you'll end up like that girl over there!" Sakura yelled while pointing to Kin's downed body.

"Oh just die already!" Zaku screamed firing his Zankukyokuha.

"Heh heh, got them" Zaku said

"Got who?" Sasuke's voice came from behind and Zaku was hit hard to the ground. Sasuke managed to move Naruto out of the way of the attack while Sakura followed behind.

"No you don't!" Sakura said stepping on Zaku's head as he tried to get up with enough pressure to knock him out.

"Looks like you're all that's left" Sasuke said with his trademark smirk looking at Dosu.

"We give up; we can't fight you as you are now…please take this gift and allow us to leave." Dosu pleaded while offering his scroll to the group.

Team 7 accepted the offer and allowed Dosu to escape with his injured teammates. Looking at Naruto both decided to wake him up and move to the tower; both have had enough action for the second exam and wanted it to be over.

"So how do we wake him?" Sakura asked.

"Simple" Sasuke said with a smirk that bordered a grin "Naruto, I got two coupons for free ramen." The result was instant.

"Yay Ramen!" Naruto cried fully awake only to be smacked on the back of the head by Sakura, leaving Naruto on the ground in pain.

The whole scene left the other groups wide-eyed in shock of Sakura's change. Neji's team had already left, while team 10 stayed behind just in case something went wrong. No one expected to see Sakura fight like that; team 10 had arrived when Sakura had cut her hair and watched in awe till it looked like Sakura was in trouble.

Ten minutes later:

Team 10 had left towards the tower while Naruto had been filled in on what had happened after chasing Orochimaru off. Team 7 was now moving through the trees making their own way to the rally point. Naruto was upset that he wasn't awake to help Sakura but the story sounded as if she didn't need much help anyway.

What both Naruto and Sakura failed to notice though, was how Sasuke seemed to be sneaking quick glances at Sakura every once in awhile.

A/N:

Second Chapter thanks for the reviews, as last time please let me know how I can improve my writing.

Hopefully this chapter explained Sakura's change a bit better.

Info:

Sakura isn't a full power house, hopefully that was apparent in her fight. I just brought her taijutsu level up to an average male genin, she still has basic nin/genjutsu skills…for now.

If you're now worried about Naruto's place on the team don't worry, somehow I set up the perfect scenario last chapter for Naruto's future advancement, one that'll keep him on par with Sasuke and Sakura. What is it? Well you'll just have to wait.


	3. A Day to Relax?

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic/ inner Sakura speech"**

'**Kyubi/demonic/ inner Sakura thoughts'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

Last Time:

Team 7 received a scroll from team Dosu after their battle. While heading towards the central tower Sasuke appears to have found a new interest.

Chapter 3: A Day of…Relaxation?

It was morning; Team 7 had arrived at the tower the night before. Naruto was upset with how useless he had been in the last fight. He had slept through the entire thing; even Sasuke was at least awake in case Sakura needed help. To make matters worse Naruto couldn't feel his chakra like he normally would.

"What's wrong with me?!" Naruto cried from atop his bed. He was feeling low and needed something to make him feel better. Then he thought of a way he could do just that and smiled.

Sasuke was on the roof of the tower staring out over the vast forest. Sakura's complete dismissal of him was completely new to him and it bothered him. This new Sakura was a true kunoichi, someone worth his time and yet she didn't appear to have any interest in him at all anymore.

'Have I really been that cold?' Sasuke thought as the sun rose even higher into the sky. Sasuke sat still thinking over everything that was important to him, his revenge, his clan, his desire for power, and his teammates.

'Once these exams are over, these ninja games will come to an end. Wait for me brother, and we shall see who's stronger.' As he finished his thoughts his eyes shifted into his sharingan and back to normal.

"Sasuke!" without even looking Sasuke knew who it was. Who else would yell so close to the person they were addressing, none other than Naruto.

"What do you want dope." Sasuke asked hoping that Naruto would say the words he wanted to hear right now.

"How bout we spar a little?" Naruto said grinning with confidence. Those words were exactly what Sasuke wanted to hear but he wasn't going to let this opportunity to piss off Naruto slip.

"You're not worth the effort; Sakura would give me more of a challenge than you would." Sasuke said with his eyes closed and tilted his head slightly to the side to avoid Naruto's fist.

"You're too predictable; I don't even need my sharingan to fight you dope." Sasuke said as he stood up. "But if you insist…" He left his comment open as he leaned back over the side of the roof falling to the ground below.

Supporting his legs with chakra Sasuke landed easily enough with Naruto landing a bit behind him throwing a punch at Sasuke's face to which Sasuke ducked and leapt to the side.

"Naruto, just in case someone is watching, let's make this fight strictly taijutsu." Sasuke said while slipping into his stance.

"Fine" Naruto answered glad with the agreement. There was no way he was going to be able to use any ninjutsu with his chakra acting strange.

Both fighters stood there in their stances as if waiting for a signal to begin, but true to nature Naruto jumped the gun as he was not one to stand still.

Naruto threw a left punch to which Sasuke ducked under while using his new position to uppercut Naruto with his right fist. Sasuke's punch met its target knocking Naruto off the ground. Keeping his momentum going Sasuke punched the now airborne Naruto in the stomach with his left and then spun a 180 on his left leg sending out his right leg to attack Naruto's stomach once more sending Naruto to crash head first into one of the many trees that surrounded the tower. Sasuke was about to continue till he saw that the blond was already unconscious.

'Is that your limit…Naruto?' Sasuke turned to leave. Sasuke wasn't worried about leaving Naruto in his current position as he could feel a certain presence nearby and felt that would be enough to look after the blond.

Hinata was walking around the tower daydreaming until she heard some yelling. After a minute Hinata realized that it was Naruto yelling at Sasuke. Curious Hinata followed the shouts outside of the tower and around a corner in time to catch the start of the fight. It was over quickly and the Uchiha left without any concern for his teammate. Worried for the blond Hinata walked over to Naruto to see if he was ok and was surprised at what she saw.

Naruto's eyes were glazed over but he wasn't unconscious. He appeared to be lost deep in thought. Hinata had seen this look before, both in a younger Naruto before his carefree mask was developed and… in herself every time she was chided for being weak. She couldn't stand that look on her hero and she would fight her fear, her shyness of talking to him if only to help him as he had helped her.

It was a sound beating. The Uchiha wasn't even using his sharingan and still defeated him effortlessly. The fact was that Naruto had lost hope the minute Sasuke's uppercut hit him in the jaw and now still sitting with his back against the tree Sasuke kicked him into Naruto was reliving his past one horrible memory at a time.

Flashback:

Oct 1

"Get back here demon!" a drunken villager yelled at a 6 year old Naruto who was running as fast as he could through the cold night, though against an adult's speed he didn't have a prayer. Tripping on an uneven part of the street Naruto fell hard and scrambled to get up and run again but the villager was already there and planted a foot in the child's side sending the boy into a wall.

Naruto was in tears, it was his birthday and every year on the same day he would be attacked remorselessly with the villagers calling him a demon for reasons unknown to him. The man who kicked him grabbed Naruto by the collar and lifted him to his face.

"Today's the day you die." The man smiled happily before dropping the boy and sending a knee into his gut as he fell. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a rusty kunai and stabbed Naruto in the leg to keep him from running any more. He then pulled out the kunai and watched as the blood flowed freely and stabbed Naruto again and again and again wounding Naruto so that he would bleed to death in pain instead of dying quickly.

Naruto had open wounds and even though they were healing the man was slashing at him way faster than he could heal. After the 7th dead cut which ran from his left hip to right collar Naruto fainted due to blood loss.

XXXXXXX

"Did you hear?" a female villager asked her companion "He's the only one who didn't pass."

This was the day of the academy graduation exam. Naruto was sitting sideways on a swing watching in sorrow as the kids, no genin, were being picked up and congratulated by their parent on finally becoming ninjas. Naruto would never know this joy as he never had parents, he figured they either died or abandoned him. As sad as it was he believed the later, no one in his village ever noticed him and if they did all he saw were those hate filled eyes drilling into his very soul.

"It's a good thing too could you imagine if they let him become a ninja? After all he is…"

"Not another word, you know that it's forbidden." The first female scolded the other. After picking up their kids the women left and were eventually followed by everyone else out of the academy grounds.

Naruto was stopped from leaving himself by a hand placed lightly on his shoulder.

"Um…N-Naruto?"

End Flashback:

"Naruto?" Hinata said again shaking Naruto a little as she tried to snap him out of his trance.

"Hmm?" Naruto said as life returned to his eyes. Looking up he saw Hinata. 'Whoa' Naruto thought as he slowly stood up. This was the first time he got a good look at the girl; normally she would faint the minute he talked to her. He had to admit Hinata was cute.

Hinata could feel her face heat up when she realized that Naruto was staring at her but she wouldn't allow herself to faint not when she was so worried about Naruto.

"Are you o-ok N-Naruto-k-kun?" Hinata asked annoyed at her stuttering.

"Yeah" Naruto said still staring at Hinata "I just don't know how Sasuke and Sakura-chan got so strong while I'm still weak."

"You are not weak!" Hinata said forcefully surprising both her and Naruto

Naruto recovered first.

"Thanks Hinata, but who am I kidding really? I have little to no chakra control, at best a brawler's level of taijutsu, I can't break a genjutsu to save my life, and on top of that…" SMACK!

Hinata had had enough, Naruto was her source of strength when she felt weak and now he needed her. Hinata's hand was still stinging from when she hit Naruto but he needed to wake up from his sorrow.

"Hinata?"

"No more" Hinata said taking a couple of steps back away from Naruto "You are not weak." She said again.

"Y-you just never had anyone there to help you." Hinata said quietly "H-how about we spar for a little bit?" she asked hoping he would let her help him.

There was a minute of silence and she thought he might decline, and then she thought of a way to make him accept, it was a low blow but it was for him.

"Naruto if you win I'll treat you to some ramen."

With that Naruto was up but he still wasn't 100% focused and Hinata could tell.

"I won't let you quit your dream Naruto-kun, I promise and I never go back on my promises because, like you, that is my ninja way."

Naruto's eyes widened a bit at hearing his own words thrown back at him, a little of his resolve to meet his dream came back and he gave Hinata a real smile one that only Iruka and the old man ever had the luxury of seeing and Hinata's heart soared seeing it.

"If that is your nindo Hinata, who am I to break it?" Naruto said "Plus it is for free ramen." He finished with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Alright ready Hinata?"

"Yes"

"_Go_" they said together.

Hinata used her hand seals to activate her byakugan while Naruto made 3 clones. Not wanting to hurt Naruto, Hinata decided not to use her gentle fist style, Naruto on the other hand didn't want to hurt Hinata after she had just helped him. After a quick scuffle the two landed five feet from each other. Before Hinata could move though Naruto spoke up.

"Hinata we don't want to hurt each other, why not make this into a capture game? Whoever catches the other first wins alright?"

Hinata seemed to think it over for a minute and then walked up next to a Naruto that she knew was a clone and gave it a smile that promised pain and it sweat dropped.

"Umm." The clone began

"You're on" Hinata said and quickly jabbed the clone with her gentle fist to dispel it while using the smoke to cover her trail.

"Oh no you don't Naruto said chasing after Hinata, both were trying to suppress their laughter.

XXXXXXX

She was watching her prey closely; he was almost in the middle of her trap with no chance of escape once the trap was sprung.

"Got you!" Hinata cheered as she jumped off her tree limb while throwing a kunai.

The kunai hit the hidden rope and Naruto was consequently dragged upside down to a tree.

"I win." Hinata said with a faint blush as she had caught her crush. To her surprise Naruto just smiled back.

"Got you." A voice said from behind Hinata and since her byakugan wasn't activated she never noticed the other Naruto sneak up behind her. Thus she panicked when someone held on to her from behind. She looked at the arms holding her in place and noticed a lot of orange.

'But wait if this is Naruto who's…' Hinata's unasked question was answered as the smiling blond in the tree disappeared. Her cheeks were on fire as she realized that the real Naruto was holding her.

"Nice try Hinata…chan" Naruto said not sure if the heiress would be upset at the addition of chan to her name. He held on for a second more not sure what to do when Hinata went limp, the additional suffix was overkill for her and she fainted into blissful sleep.

Not knowing what to do Naruto picked her up bridal style and returned to the central tower, more precisely his room as he didn't know where Hinata's room or team was. After he placed Hinata on the bed he found himself sitting on the floor doing something most thought impossible, He…Naruto was thinking.

XXXXXXX

Kakashi had just arrived at the Hokage's tower. After learning of Orochimaru's appearance and how his students actually drove him off he realized just how much danger would be surrounding his students. Orochimaru was after Sasuke, Sasuke was after Itachi, and from the reports Jiraiya had been sending in, Itachi was part of an organization that was after Naruto. Yes Kakashi's first team was destined for greatness or disaster and he wasn't one to let his comrades die.

Kakashi was let in to the Hokage's office by the chunin standing guard, the Third Hokage had been warned of the events during the exams and was only mildly surprised to see the team's sensei in his office.

"What can I do for you Hatake?"

"Lord Hokage…I have a request."

"A request?" the Hokage's interest peaked. "Well then what is it that you ask for?"

"Well… if Naruto makes it to the finals there's a high chance that he would ask me to train him. Unfortunately."

"If Sasuke makes it to the finals you would rather work one on one with him correct?" The Third asked.

"Yes, however I'd like to ask for Ebi…"

"Naruto is mine." A voice stated calmly from the open window. The voice came from a man who looked slightly older than Kakashi but his eyes held far more experience.

"Jiraiya, what brings you here?" Sarutobi asked his once pupil

"Two reasons. One I heard my old teammate is making a move on the brat's team so I came to check on my godson only to hear that he was about to be left with someone who rarely leaves the village and opts to train children rather than taking missions. If you don't mind I think I'd be a better teacher for Naruto."

"And the second?" Sarutobi pushed

"I ran into someone on my way back and filled said person in that another kunoichi might beat her to killing Orochimaru."

At this point two more figures arrived through the window. One was tall and had blonde hair with an impressive chest to boot. Like Jiraiya though her eyes showed more experience than what her looks said. The other figure was short with dark hair and was carrying a small pig.

Kakashi was a strong shinobi yet he felt greatly humbled while in the Hokage's office as out of all the people who could kill him without trying three were in the same room as him. He sweat dropped.

"Tsunade, why are you here? I thought you never wanted to see the village again."

"I came to see whether or not this pervert was lying when he said that there was a kunoichi that was able to actually prevent the snake from marking someone with his curse mark."

"It's true alright" Sarutobi verified thinking of a cheap way to tempt his other student to stay in the village.

"She also managed to put your old teammate into a tree…twice."

Tsunade started laughing; there was no way that last part was true. Even she had only sent Orochimaru flying a handful of times in her past, there was no way a fresh genin could do it let alone twice.

"You're lying" Tsunade said calmly

"No" the Third replied "Her focus was on her friends and loved one. You of all people should know the power behind that motivation.

"I want to see her"

"You may, but you will have to wait two more days before the prelims" Sarutobi said with a smile. Then he looked to Kakashi.

"Are you fine with leaving Naruto in Jiraiya's care?"

"It's only natural" Kakashi said with his eye smile "Be careful though, he may be a knucklehead but he still has a knack for surprising people.

"Alright then in two days time we will meet at the central tower in the forest of death for the preliminary rounds. Until then dismissed."

Once they were gone the Hokage pulled out his pipe and lit it.

'I'm getting to old for this.'

XXXXXXX

AN: I hate midterms! Three weeks of test, papers, quizzes, and all around hell. The next chapter will be out MUCH sooner. As always please review and any ideas are welcome.

Also I realize that Naruto is not necessarily for children so cursing _may_ start to appear. And in order to save time I will be using the English names for future Jutsu.


	4. The Preliminaries Begin!

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic"**

'**Kyubi/demonic'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

Last Time:

Well… you remember.

Chapter 4: The Preliminaries Begin!

All the chunin exam participants stood together with their teams in a large room designed for a large scale meeting. The Hokage was on the balcony along with all the jonin instructors who still had students participating in the exams as well as two new people Naruto didn't recognize.

"I believe it's time we get things started." The Third Hokage announced "First of all I would like to congratulate each and every one of you for making it this far. Unfortunately, many more of you have passed than we intended. Therefore we must have a preliminary round to cut down the numbers making it to the final round. I am truly sorry however this must be done. Is there anyone among you who does not wish to continue? Your removal now will not jeopardize your teammates chances of moving on as from here on out the fighting will be one on one."

For a while no one spoke up as they were still shocked at having a prelim. Then the silver haired genin that the rookie nine had met at the beginning of the exams raised his hand and forfeited his chance to continue saying that those who arrived early to the tower would have the advantage as they had time to rest and walked out of the main room after wishing the rookie nine good luck."

'Now on to more serious matters.' Kabuto thought as he disappeared into the forest of death.

"If that's all then we will move on to the matches, there were 7 teams that passed and with Kabuto's forfeit we now have 20 genin for 10 matches. The winner of each match will then proceed to the finals. More information on that will come after the prelims." Sarutobi stated.

"Now if…"

"Sir." A jonin stated while interrupting the Hokage "If you don't mind, I would like to take it from here."

The Third smiled "Alright they're all yours. I'll be staying to watch the matches here."

"Yes sir." The jonin saluted and then turned to the assembled genin.

"Alright listen up, cough I am Hayate Gekko, the cough cough proctor for the preliminaries. Cough, there are three rules cough, One: I reserve the right to end the match and declare a winner at anytime. Cough Two: you will lose if you pass out. And cough cough Three: Killing is not prohibited but highly frowned upon." Hayate continued with his coughing fit from a minute.

"Now if you will all direct your attention to the monitor we will randomly choose those to fight. All others please move to the balcony and await your turn."

Everyone turned to the large monitor on the wall as it sped through names finally stopping on two.

"The first match will be cough, Uchiha Sasuke and cough cough Zaku Abumi"

At the mentioning of his opponent Sasuke did something he never did before, he smiled, not smirked but truly smiled. The look in his eyes guaranteed Zaku pain. The other genin moved to the balcony as ordered while the rest of the rookie nine were feeling sorry for Zaku.

"Eh this will be over quickly" Zaku said proudly

"It will be even quicker if you just forfeited now" Sasuke said dryly barely trying to piss Zaku off.

"What was THAT!"

'It worked'

"First round of the prelims…Begin"

"Zankuha!" Zaku yelled aiming both arms at Sasuke. Dust was knocked up due to the sudden blast and no one could see where Sasuke was.

"You're a one trick pony aren't you?" Sasuke said from behind Zaku. Zaku ducked the backhand he thought Sasuke had thrown at him like the time they fought before. He was surprised as he was hit in the jaw.

"I am not" Sasuke whispered just before Zaku was launched into the air. Sasuke followed up getting behind the air born Zaku.

"I don't even need a jutsu to finish you off." Sasuke commented before swinging his left leg to kick Zaku in the ribs but Zaku blocked it with his own matching leg after shifting his balance, which is what Sasuke wanted as he used the momentum from Zaku's block to spin the other direction and landed a solid right to Zaku's face followed by a spinning left backhand as they started to fall. Zaku landed painfully but the pain was nothing compared to the knee in gut he received after landing.

"I don't even think I'll name that combo seeing as I sort of copied it from someone else." Sasuke said looking up at Lee. The green clad genin was jealous that the Uchiha was able to learn the first step of the primary lotus after only seeing him do it once.

"Don't worry Lee I don't plan on using any copied moves unless I have to."

With his statement Sasuke earned a bit of respect from everyone, it was common knowledge that the Uchiha prided themselves on stealing techniques and turning them on the original user. An Uchiha who didn't want to abuse this power was refreshing to all those who've ever faced the sharingan.

Zaku was barely conscious and still wanting to fight, Sasuke turn towards him and started up hand signs going slowly and deliberately so that everyone could see what jutsu he was going to use. When he finished he dropped his hands and looked over to Hayate.

"How about we pretend I used the Grand Fireball jutsu and torched him?" Sasuke asked.

"Winner! Uchiha Sasuke!"

The other Konoha genin all cheered at Sasuke's easy victory. Once he got back to his group he looked them over.

"Don't either of you dare lose here."

"Hmph" Sakura stated as she turned away from the Uchiha

"I won't lose; I'm going all the way even if it means beating you teme."

The group never noticed that there were a few eyes watching their interactions during their conversation.

"Well that's something you don't see everyday" Kakashi said aloud.

"What are you referring to Kakashi?" Tsunade asked after hearing his comment.

"Before entering the exam Sakura was for all intents and purposes a fan girl who would give anything for Sasuke to notice her. Now that he shows some interest in talking to his team she's completely ignoring him."

"Hey, that sounds like someone we know doesn't it hime?" Jiraiya chided his old teammate before he found himself face first into the balcony floor.

"Maybe you shouldn't pry in other people's business Jiraiya." Tsunade said sweetly

"With my other job as a spymaster what do you expect?" Jiraiya laughed while trying to explain.

"The next match will be Shino Aburame and Yoroi Akado. Begin!"

The contestants had already moved down to the arena while Kakashi's group was talking.

Yoroi ran straight for Shino and threw a heavy punch to which Shino countered by sidestepping and bringing his knee up into Yoroi's gut. Yoroi in turn grabbed on to Shino's head and slammed the young ninja into the ground.

"Nice try kid, but you're too young to fight at this level. Don't worry once I drain your chakra to a decent point I'll let you go and you can forfeit." Yoroi promised.

"_Shino_" both of Shino's teammates had never seen Shino like this, normally Shino was three steps ahead of his opponents and almost never allowed an opponent to get in so close to him. There was no way that Yoroi's jutsu was enough to catch Shino off guard.

In the ring Yoroi could tell something was wrong, he could feel the boy's chakra being sucked out but he also felt it being pulled right back.

"What are you?" Yoroi asked in disbelief of the boy's ability to counter him. He could see that Shino's face was still calm as ever, and then Shino spoke to answer his question.

"I am an Aburame and this, is called Bug Clone Jutsu." Shino stated before his body shifted and in his place there were thousands of purple chakra-eating insects called kikaichu. All of the insects latched on to Yoroi and immediately began eating his chakra. Yoroi cried out in pain and ran in circles for a minute before falling over as he was too drained to move any longer.

"Don't worry I'll call them off once your chakra is at a safe level, then you can forfeit." Shino mocked.

After another minute Shino called off his bugs as Yoroi had passed out from pain.

"Winner: Shino Aburame!"

"That's the Shino I know!" Kiba yelled for all to hear.

When Shino arrived on the balcony he told his team he expected the same from them and was silent after that.

"Round Three will be Temari of the Sand and Tenten from Konoha!"

The match was over before it began. Temari, a blond haired girl from Suna, wielded a battle fan that was as tall as she was and together were capable of devastating wind jutsus as Tenten was made to learn the hard way. Every time Tenten upgraded the number and size of the weapons she threw, Temari would just open up a third of her fan and give it a swing rendering all projectiles useless. When Temari opened the last part of her fan and swung, Tenten was picked up by gale force winds to the height of the tower and she fell once the winds died down. Temari made sure that Tenten landed on her fan knocking the girl unconscious leaving all the Konoha ninja pissed.

"Winner Temari of the Sand." Hayate announced.

Temari wasn't done though as she tossed Tenten toward her discarded weapons in a half hearted attempt to impale Tenten on her own weapons. Luckily Tenten was caught by the green wearing ninja of Team Guy aka Lee.

The tension between the two was intense, Hayate told Temari and Lee to return to the balcony before a fight resulted, both genin did as they were told since they didn't want to forfeit.

'Glad that's over' Hayate thought. "Match cough number cough cough 4, Ino Yamanaka and Sakura Haruno please cough cough come down to the ring."

Both girls met in the middle of the arena.

"Well forehead, looks like we have to fight after all."

"Yeah, let's put everything we have into it and when it's over may the best kunoichi move on to the finals."

"Right"

"Cough, round 4 begin!"

At first nothing happened, or at least not to the same level as all the other fights had started, Ino and Sakura merely stared at each other as their past ran between them, how Ino stuck up for Sakura and leading to their rivalry over Sasuke.

"Ready Pig?"

"Let's go forehead"

"_Go_!"

Both launched at each other colliding in a taijutsu battle. Ino, having paid more attention to being a kunoichi than a fan girl in her early years began with an advantage over Sakura. Ino's taijutsu was more refined and she also had grown up in a ninja clan.

Tsunade watched as the genin who was praised by her old sensei and teammate fight it out in the ring below.

"She has terrible form, her attacks are low genin at best, and how did she even make it past the other rounds?" Tsunade commented.

Off to the side Sarutobi and Jiraiya exchanged looks, sure Tsunade only had negative things to say about the young girl fighting but the fact was in order to make a comment, Tsunade was at least watching the matches.

Sasuke didn't understand what was going on. In the forest Sakura all but defeated the sound team on her own and was now struggling against Ino, granted Ino was good for a genin kunoichi but what he saw from Sakura a few days ago left Ino in the dust.

He continued watching the two attack each other, at least Sakura was catching up to Ino's level quickly. Finally they broke apart. For some reason Ino took a kunai to her hair and cut it letting the hair fall freely. Then she was off again making hand signs that the rookie nine knew led to her mind transfer jutsu which meant that Sakura's best bet was to keep moving.

It turned out that Ino had something else prepared as Sakura ran over Ino's discarded hair and Ino used a jutsu to hold Sakura still using her recently cut hair as an anchor.

"Finally, Mind Transfer Jutsu!" Ino called out as her body went limp.

Sakura slowly stirred as Ino's hair dropped the hold they had on her. Everyone watched as she slowly raised her hand.

"Proctor…I"

"Don't you do it!" Sasuke yelled surprising everyone who knew him and his reputation for not caring. He couldn't take it anymore. He knew Sakura was stronger than that and he wanted everyone besides Naruto and him to see it. Then he went for a low blow to see if he could reach Sakura under the jutsu.

"Don't tell me you're so scared of fighting Ino that you're just willing to sit on your butt and take it!"

In the inner depths of Sakura something began to stir and then snapped.

"SHUT UP SASUKE-TEME!" Sakura screamed anyone who didn't fall over from Sasuke's outburst before fell when one of Sasuke's "ultimate" fan girls called him that.

Ino was quickly ejected from Sakura's mind by some unknown but powerful force.

"SAY IT AGAIN, I DARE YOU!" Sakura was out for blood and was staring intently on the Uchiha. Who just smirked at her.

"You can kill me later; you have a match to win first." Sasuke said nodding towards Ino.

Sakura turned to face her rival her eyes lighting up with determination and her chakra slightly flared.

'That's it, show us the real Sakura' Sasuke thought with his smirk still on his face

Up on the other part of the balcony both Jiraiya and the Third were wearing smiles as Tsunade looked on in awe.

"W-what's going on?"

"You'll see in a minute" Sarutobi answered Tsunade's question while also showing his interest in the turn of events. "The Will of Fire burns strongly within her, she just needs someone to help her control it." Sarutobi added while giving Tsunade a small smile. Their conversation was interrupted however as another flare of chakra was released from Sakura.

Meanwhile Orochimaru who was disguised as a jonin instructor absently rubbed his chest as a bruise he received not too long ago flared up.

In the ring Sakura's focus fell solely on Ino, each flare of chakra was stronger than the last. Even though Ino was mostly unharmed it was all she could do to not get blown away by the sheer pressure of Sakura's chakra.

"Sorry to keep you waiting Ino. Let's start over." Sakura said quietly setting herself into a stance both left hand and foot forward and bent while her opposite leg was back and her right arm was bent the same way as the first just in front of her chest.

Ino just mirrored Sakura and nodded too shocked to do anything more.

In an instant Sakura was behind Ino who luckily managed to duck under Sakura's backhand. Realizing Sakura had the advantage in speed Ino stayed close to prevent Sakura from moving behind her and another taijutsu clash began.

This time the clash was different. Before Sakura could only do so much as she either had to dodge or defend Ino's attacks, now Sakura was blocking with ease and making as little movements as possible to avoid being struck, it was almost as if she didn't mind being hit at all.

Tsunade was having a mental overload. 'Her taijutsu level increased! It's almost as if she toying with her. Her defense is excellent, now what about her offense?'

Sakura thought that the match lasted long enough to at least keep Ino from giving up her chosen career completely and instead of blocking Ino's next attack Sakura grabbed Ino's arm and threw her back.

Ino landed safely and was about to bring the fight back to Sakura before she saw Sakura hold up her hand in a stopping motion.

"Are you going to quit?" Ino asked in disbelief

"No, you are"

"Why would I…" Ino began and then it happened the constant flare of chakra around Sakura stopped as Sakura brought her fist back and slammed it into the ground. There was a slight pause and then a crater formed underneath Sakura a good twenty meters in diameter. Ino paled at the sight.

"That is the weakest punch I can throw right now. Ino… please understand and back down." Sakura pleaded.

Ino looked at her childhood friend in disbelief but she knew that at this point there was no chance for her to win.

"Proctor…I admit defeat. You win Sakura." Ino said with a small smile. "Just promise me you'll win your next battle."

"You got it" Sakura said returning the smile.

"Winner: Sakura Haruno!"

Everyone was silent for a minute then applause came from everywhere excluding Gaara, even Shino clapped in Sakura's victory.

In the stands Sasuke looked over to Naruto. "Well dope, that's two. Want to make it a clean sweep?"

"You bet!"

Elsewhere "What is the meaning of this? Her combat level is higher than mine was at that age, if she ever learned to control that raw power she'd be unstoppable!"

"Calm down Tsunade" The Third said calmly "We told you what happened; somehow Sakura unlocked this power while trying to protect her teammates. This is the third time she has tapped into this power and so far the strongest."

Tsunade sat down in one of the seats provided. "I need a drink" she didn't even notice the smirk on Sarutobi's or Jiraiya's faces.

"Next matchup: Naruto Uzumaki versus Kiba Inuzuka!"

"Wahoo Akamaru this will be easy!" Kiba shouted running down to the stadium.

Naruto followed except more slowly. Whatever that Orochimaru guy did to him left him unable to actually mold is chakra.

"Begin"

Kiba wasted no time as he threw kunai after kunai at Naruto which Naruto miraculously managed to dodge. Kiba then tossed Akamaru a soldier pill making his fur turn red.

"Man beast clone, Fang over Fang!" Kida shouted as he and the now transformed Akamaru charged at Naruto while spinning rapidly.

Both cyclones were aimed directly at Naruto who realized that the only way to win this match was a gamble and he hoped luck was on his side.

The first cyclone slammed into Naruto head on and both Naruto and the cyclone went crashing into the nearby wall.

In the stands Hinata had her hands over her mouth in worry. She knew the damage Kiba's technique could do and a direct attack could leave anyone in the emergency room for days.

Down in the stands or more precisely the wall where Naruto and the cyclone went headlong into a feral looking Kiba was standing over a hunched over Naruto. The second cyclone landed next to him and turned back into Akamaru.

"Proctor this match is…" Kiba's statement was cut short as Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke, no one noticed Hinata's sigh of relief.

"What? Akamaru!" Kiba was going to have the pup search for the real Naruto only to see Naruto holding Akamaru by his paws and at a distance to where Akamaru couldn't cause any damage.

Kiba was about to lung at the blond holding his companion until he felt cold steal resting against his neck.

"Any other person and you'd be dead now, give up?" Naruto asked from behind Kiba while holding the kunai to his neck pressing on the blade with a bit more force, not enough to cut the skin but enough to get his point across.

Kiba took a moment to look over at Akamaru who was still struggling with Naruto's clone 'Damn'

"Alright, you win" Kiba said full of remorse for letting his guard down and losing the match because of it. He thought that attack would finish Naruto and so he had Akamaru cancel the fang over fang and man beast clone jutsu ready to call it a win.

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!"

"What just happened?" Sakura asked to no one in particular. Kakashi just happened to be passing by and heard his charge's question and decided to answer.

"That, Sakura, was Naruto's innate ability to form plans in the middle of a fight. Somehow he knew he couldn't fight Kiba's jutsu so he decided to take it head on and lure Kiba into a false sense of security. As you can see, it worked" He said with an eye smile.

"Really, wow." Sakura said while looking at her knuckleheaded teammate in a new light. 'Who knew he could think?'

"So that's Minato's kid huh? He doesn't look like much." Tsunade said offhandedly

"Yeah he is, and now that he has made it into the finals I'll make sure he lives up to his father's name." Jiraiya commented back. "I suppose Haruno will do fine as well, so long as she can use that power again"

"I already told you she needs training."

Jiraiya looked at his old teammate and decided to push his luck a little.

"Maybe, but no kunoichi from this village could teach her much about controlling that raw power of hers."

"I'll do it, after all Akatsuki will be after Minato's son and he doesn't look like he can even defend himself. At least with her around he might survive a little longer."

"Are you saying I can't train Naruto to be stronger than them?" Jiraiya's pride was a little hurt.

"Yes"

"There's no way you can make that girl stronger than I can make Naruto in a month."

"I already have a head start" Tsunade said with a smirk then she had an idea that came with an evil glint in her eye. "How bout we bet on it Jiraiya?"

"Bet, what did you have in mind?"

"6,000,000 ryu and don't say you can't afford it with how well your smut books have been selling"

"Ok and what if I win?"

"I won't hit you under any circumstance for 2 months, deal?"

"…"

"Jiraiya?"

"…"

It was then that Tsunade noticed that Jiraiya had a lecherous grin on his face and a bloody nose to go along with it.

"Jiraiya!"

"Huh? Hee hee, sorry about that." Jiraiya said while scratching the back of his head.

"Do we have a deal or not?"

"Yeah yeah of course!" Jiraiya said with enthusiasm as his face started turning red at all the thoughts that ran through his head.

"Match number 6: Misume Tsurugi and Hinata Hyuga"

XXXXXXX

AN: Ok I feel I should take consensus on the matches for the finals. Neh. I'm having fun with Sakura's fights now if only Sasuke and Naruto could keep up with her and team 7 would be unstoppable… ok, hard to beat… by chunin levels.

Yes I know it feels like I'm going through the exams fast but that's the point, I want the real changes to start during the month of training before the final exam.

As always please review, it motivates me to write the next chapter.


	5. My Ninja Way, the prelims end

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic"**

'**Kyubi/demonic'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

Last Time:

The preliminaries were underway Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura have all made it to the finals with Sakura's latent powers surfacing again for the third time. The next match: Misume Tsurugi and Hinata Hyuga!

Chapter 5: My Ninja Way, the prelims end.

Hinata woke up from her dream still blushing; the cause for the blush was a certain blond haired boy with whisker marks on his face. The last thing she remembered from her dream was that this boy had his arms wrapped around her while he stood behind her resting his chin on her shoulder. She could feel every breath he took and each breath sent her already flushed cheeks to new shades of red. She didn't know the reason they were in this position and she didn't care. The first part of his sentence was lost to her, the only words she heard were "Hinata…chan" and with that thought and a smile Hinata returned to the world of the conscious.

Her eyes took in the light, the first thing she notice was that she wasn't in her normal room followed by the realization that she was in the chunin exams, then she remembered the events that led her to the room and she blushed, finally she noticed a blond mop of hair just a bit away from her bed, following the hair she looked down and saw his face and his whisker marks, the boy of her dreams was no more than 5 feet away from her.

Hinata slowly slid off the bed and moved to get a better look at Naruto, his legs were crossed and his hands were held together, he was meditating and to push that fact his chakra was outlining his body while he sat there. Hinata activated her byakugan and was that Naruto's chakra was fluctuating violently and the worst of it was coming from his stomach.

"N-Naruto?" Hinata called out to Naruto, slowly his chakra resided into him and he opened his eyes and thought he had been placed into a genjutsu as the only thing he saw was a pair of beautiful lavender eyes and his body felt light. 'If this is a genjutsu, I don't mind dying while under it.' Naruto though with a light smile on his face.

Hinata's face was red as she noticed for the second time that Naruto was staring at her. Working up her nerve she reached out with her index finger and tapped Naruto on his nose and watched as he came to his senses.

"Oh, hi Hinata-chan." Naruto greeted with a sheepish grin on his face.

"H-Hello Naruto K-kun" Hinata greeted back, her face displaying a new shade of red as she did so.

This time Naruto's face turned a shade of red and he couldn't explain the feeling all he knew was that he liked it and the more he looked at the girl in front of him the stronger that feeling got.

"W-what were you doing Naruto k-kun?" Hinata asked her crush

"Well…heh heh." Naruto didn't want to tell Hinata about his 'tenant' so he did the next best thing… he lied, mostly.

"We got attacked in the forest of death and one of the guys attacking managed to seal off my chakra, I haven't been able to use too much since so I was trying to find a way to access it again."

"I heard Kakashi-sensei is g-good at seals; maybe you can ask him to look at it for you."

"I know but I can't right now because of the exams, I only have access to a small amount and my control has gotten worse. If it comes down to one on one I might not be able to win." Naruto said a bit depressed of his current situation. He was still unable to forgive himself from being almost no use in the battles while in the forest and both Sasuke and Sakura seemed to have gotten stronger. It was Hinata who took his mind off his current dilemma.

"Naruto-kun I-I want y-you to make me a promise." Hinata said while pushing her index fingers together.

"What's that?"

"I-I want you to promise that you won't give up a-and that you will make it to the end of the chunin exam." Hinata answered.

Naruto looked at the princess and smiled "Only under one condition."

"W-What's that?" Hinata asked curious of what Naruto would ask

"I want you to make that same promise to me, and once we finish we'll continue to get stronger together, i-if you want to that is."

"It's a promise a-and I won't go back on my promise because t-that i-is my ninja way." Hinata quoted Naruto as her face was burning. Naruto felt as though he had stayed long enough with Hinata and decided it was time to leave.

"I guess I should be going now, I'll see you later Hinata-chan" Naruto called as he walked through the door shutting it behind him. He hadn't gone more than two steps away from the door when he heard a muffled sound followed by a thump. Naruto turned and opened Hinata's door to find the pale beauty asleep on her bed.

'She must be tired' Naruto thought as he closed the door silently and left to find his team.

XXXXXXX

Hinata stood on the stadium floor as nervous as ever not only was this her first fight were her life might be at stake but she also had to win this match to make it to the finals in order to have her father acknowledge her and for another reason that meant even more to her.

Misume stood his ground calmly he knew the Hyuga were dangerous fighters when it came to close combat but he had also heard from Kabuto that Hinata was nothing to worry about in a real fight and, like Orochimaru, he trusted Kabuto's intelligence.

"Begin" the proctor shouted and Misume was speeding towards the young Hyuga in an attempt to end the match quickly.

"Hinata has already lost this battle". Neji said to no one in particular in the balcony as he watched the match.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked as he overheard Neji's comment.

"It is fate. The same fate that determines who lives and who dies in battle, the same fate that marks a person from birth while others remain pure, the same fate that allows an innocent man to die for the actions of another. That same fate is why Hinata is weak and why she will lose this and every fight she enters." Neji stated.

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, I bet Hinata could kick your butt if she wanted to!" Naruto screamed. He didn't know why but he didn't like the way Neji was talking about Hinata, relative or not he would not stand for it.

"Then you are a fool, and deserve the title of dead last." Neji countered with his all knowing smug.

"We'll see." Naruto stated calmly though he was ready to fight Neji that instant, if only he had his full chakra he would go all out and teach the arrogant prick a thing or two about fate.

Down in the ring Misume had evaded Hinata's palm strikes and reveled that he could stretch his limbs and bend them beyond normal human motion. Misume currently had Hinata fully wrapped up as was taunting her, telling her that she was weak and if she didn't give up he would crush her slowly. To push his point Misume added more pressure on the young Hyuga causing her to squeak from the pain.

From the balcony Naruto was creating an indent of his hands into the rail he was holding on to. Like the Inuzuka's, his hearing was beyond normal and he could hear Misume's words, add that to the fact that Neji seemed to be enjoying Hinata's torture and it was a miracle that Naruto hadn't jumped into the ring to fight Misume himself. Then he saw Hinata's head drop in defeat and he could feel his heart sink with it.

"You promised" Naruto whispered to himself and then it turned into a shout "You promised you wouldn't give up Hinata!"

'Naruto?' Hinata thought, then the words finally hit her and her head raised slightly and she wore a small smile as a few tears of joy fell from her pale face. "Thank you…Naruto-kun" she whispered

"What was that?" Misume asked with a smirk "Are you ready to forfeit?"

Hinata's eyes rose to catch Misume's with a new resolve in them.

"Sorry… Misume-san, you are strong but against a Hyuga you are at a disadvantage of being a close range fighter."

"Hah! What can you do? I have your arms wrapped tight so there is no way your gentle fist could reach me. Give it up already"

"G-gentle fist is only a way o-of effectively using our b-bloodline" Hinata stated as she activated her byakugan without any hand seals.

"Since the day we were old enough to train, every Hyuga is taught to direct chakra through every tenketsu in order to have precise chakra control with our gentle fist style"

"Ha! I just finished telling you your gentle fist will not work. Weren't you listening? I have your arms pinned. Quit wasting my time and give up." Misume demanded

"You're the one who should pay attention; I said Hyugas could send chakra through all their tenketsu…not just our hands" Hinata finished with a small smile of her own "This fight isn't over."

To prove her point Hinata flared her chakra through a tenketsu on both her elbows with enough force to make up for the lack of a jabbing motion and shut off Misume's tenketsu in that spot effectively weakening his jutsu and giving Hinata enough room to move her hands. Hinata started with the tenketsu within reach and as Misume's arms turned back to normal Hinata closed off more tenketsu until Misume had no use of his arms.

"It's over" Hinata said although her statement showed she wasn't sure and her byakugan remained active.

"D-damn it, that's all I had, you were supposed to be weak!" Misume cried

"Everyone can change, you can be weak and become strong" Hinata then looked in Naruto's direction but didn't meet his eyes; she instead stopped at his smile.

"O-or you can be a d-dead last a-and become a H-hokage" Hinata finished while blushing.

The rest of the rookie nine were snickering at Hinata's statement as Naruto was still clueless to Hinata's feelings for him.

"Winner, Hinata Hyuga!" and with that all of Hinata's friends cheered as did the leaf ninja who knew Hinata was a gentle person and were pleased with her win regardless of how exhausted Hinata looked from using up most of her chakra.

Up in the stands Naruto was dancing around Neji saying "I told you so, I told you so" once Neji was irritated he walked off saying Misume was weaker than Hinata and that she would lose in the first round of the finals.

"Iruka really did a good job with these genin" Hiruzen smiled 'They all carry the will of fire'

"Yes but that girl needs a confidence boost" Jiraiya added in. then he had an idea. If what he was reading off the girl when she looked at Naruto not only could he add another body guard to Naruto's group but the future possibilities of his books were limitless.

Once Hinata returned to the group a pair of arms were wrapped around her, she was ready to scream until she heard his voice.

"AWESOME JOB HINATA-CHAN!" Naruto screamed while hugging her and with that outburst and dozens of eyes on her she fainted.

"Jiraiya, what are you doing?" Tsunade asked the legendary pervert as he was scribbling away on a scroll.

"Oh me, heh heh nothing… well at least nothing in the sense you're thinking" was the reply

"Well then what is it?" Tsunade pushed ready to hit Jiraiya at which point Jiraiya understood that he was in danger… again.

"Look, Naruto is my godson. Let me use this as a way to prove to him how much of an idiot he really is in the future ok." Jiraiya's comment caused Tsunade to laugh a little as she thought of toying with the little blond idiot herself.

"Next match: Nara Shikamaru and Kin Tsuchi" the proctor yelled.

Kin jumped down into the ring ready to take on one of the leaf genin as she was still royally pissed about her defeat to the pink haired girl. "HURRY UP AND GET DOWN HERE!" she yelled at her opponent who still hadn't moved an inch.

"Oh man, what a drag." Shikamaru said to no one in particular. He really hated fighting; he was more of a planner and rarely fought if he thought Choji and Ino could handle the fight without him.

After a minute and being told that he would forfeit if he took any longer Shikamaru made his way to the arena floor, with his hands comfortably behind his head.

"Yeah! C'mon Shikamaru!" Ino yelled having regained her composure a bit from fighting Sakura.

'So annoying' Shikamaru thought, knowing Ino would kill him if she heard him.

"Match 7, begin" and with that Kin was throwing senbon straight at Shikamaru. As Shikamaru dogged the needles he noticed the bells attached to some that were not aimed directly at him and wondered what they were for, and then it hit him as he heard the bells chime. A feeling of vertigo and he was seeing clones of Kin. Lashing out, Shikamaru threw a pair of kunai at Kin followed by his shadow. Kin saw this and avoided the attack while throwing more senbon and scoring a few hits on Shikamaru as he was still seeing double.

After a few rounds of going back and forward Kin found her chance to end the battle, as she went to throw her final senbon she froze.

"W-what's going on?" Kin asked to no one, but Shikamaru answered anyways.

"Finally, shadow possession jutsu success." After explaining how he caught Kin he pulled put some shuriken and Kin copied, both followed by throwing their weapons and dogging however, Kin was too close to the wall behind her and as Shikamaru bent back to duck Kin followed and slammed her head on the wall knocking her out cold.

"Winner Nara Shikamaru" the announcement was followed by screams from Ino

"Match 8, Kankuro of the sand vs. Neji Hyuga"

This match was over quickly, Neji acting on revenge for Tenten though he would never admit it had his byakugan active and found the real puppeteer had switched places with his puppet and charged forward completely bypassing the fake Kankuro and striking the bandaging on the fake's back once. Everyone was in shock of his actions till the fake fell over and Kankuro stumbled out of his bandages unable to use his chakra. Kankuro then glared at Neji but it was nothing to the one Neji sent him and out of fear or instinct Kankuro decided to give up.

Match 9 was Choji vs. Dosu. Choji started strong with his human boulder but it was slow to turn and Dosu led him into a wall where he was stuck and after explaining that his jutsu focused on sound vibrations and not directly sound itself he proved that just covering ones ears wouldn't save them from his attack, hence while Choji was stuck in the fall Dosu punched Choji and sent the vibrations to Choji's eardrums knocking him unconscious.

"Match number 10 and final preliminary bout" Hayate was unable to say the names as both appeared in the middle of the arena, Lee in a swirl of leaves and Gaara in a swirl of sand. Everyone thought the same thing; this was going to be something worth watching.

The match started one sided as Lee attempted to punch/kick Gaara only to be stopped by a wall of sand as Gaara stood there unable to fully see Lee's movements at his intense speed. For all of Lee's effort though he wasn't awarded with even a single hit.

Up in the stands everyone was in awe of both Lee's speed and Gaara's defense. Guy was asked why Lee didn't use a fire or water jutsu to deal with Gaara's sand. The reply was that Lee was unable to utilize chakra in that particular way and was only able to use taijutsu. Once he finished his statement to the others he decided that Lee shouldn't be held back during a fight with someone as dangerous or as well protected as Gaara.

"Lee, take them off!" Guy yelled giving his student a thumbs up

"Yes Guy sensei!" Lee shouted while dodging a wall of sand. When he landed he jumped back to add some space between himself and Gaara. Lee reached beneath his leg warmers and pulled out a pair of weights, one for each leg and dropped them carelessly to the ground causing two small craters in the arena floor.

As the weights hit the ground Lee was in front of Gaara and was gone before the sand could move to intercept him. Lee continued this till he had an idea of how fast the sand could react to protect Gaara; he also realized that the sand moved independently from Gaara's gestures.

Gaara, to say the least, was amazed at Lee's speed and was at a complete loss for what happened as he was suddenly slammed into a wall from behind. Everyone in the stands were excited as Gaara's perfect defense was crushed by Lee's speed. Those from the hidden sand were shocked that Gaara was actually hit and fearful of how Gaara would retaliate.

As Gaara's body slid down the wall it fell apart to reveal nothing more than a lump of sand. Lee dashed to the side to avoid a sand made shuriken and whirled in the direction of where the weapon as launched to find Gaara standing in the center of the ring unharmed and bored.

"Is that all you have?" Gaara asked nonchalantly. Lee's only response was to loosen the wraps around his arms while giving Gaara his trademark smile. Then to all, under the rank of Jonin, Lee disappeared only to be replaced by a shockwave the sent Gaara flying straight up with his sand desperately trying to keep up but before it could reach Gaara he was wrapped up by the bandages Lee had loosened not two seconds before his attack and was free falling with Lee pulling Gaara into a violent spin as well as increasing Gaara's decent rate to a speed that could kill them both.

"Primary Lotus!" Lee cried as he jumped to the side while Gaara crashed head first into the ground. Once the debris settled Gaara was revealed standing with nothing more than a cut lip from Lee's initial kick. As Lee stood there in shock a wave of sand crashed into him, before he recovered he was attacked again and again.

Up in the stands Sakura was wondering why Lee wasn't dogging any of Gaara's attacks as he was clearly the faster of the two. Guy explained that the Primary Lotus was a double edged sword and that Lee needed some time to recover from using the first gate, he also mentioned the gates and that the Leaf's Lotus bloomed twice and that she shouldn't worry. Guy's last comment though was overheard by Kakashi and a small argument over Guy's methods developed.

In the ring Lee finally managed to return to his feet and was once again dogging Gaara's attacks like nothing. Once Gaara stopped attacking Lee stood in a defensive position and one by one he forced the next three gates open and once again only those of the Jonin class and higher could see his movements, Sasuke caught bits and pieces thanks to his fully evolved sharingan (not mangekyo, he doesn't know he has it yet) while Naruto was able to catch all the movements that happened within ten feet of him and nothing else during Lee's onslaught, something only Jiraiya noticed.

Lee's impressive attack ended with a devastating crash and a cry of "Hidden Lotus!" once again the debris cleared and Lee's body was heavily damaged by his own attack and once again Gaara not only survived but he was still able to stand, though Gaara was obviously not happy about getting hurt so much while fighting a single person. Those from the sand village now believed that all leaf ninja were borderline monsters as Lee was only a genin and had so much power.

This time around though Gaara wasn't as nice, he struck Lee repeatedly and as his sand landed a heavy blow to Lee's side Gaara wrapped the rest of his sand around Lee ready to crush the young ninja into nothing.

With Lee knowing that he was about to die, his mind raced to his fondest memories, which mostly included Guy, he remembered his fight with Sasuke and his countless fights with Neji, he thought of how Sakura, Tenten, and Guy would take his death, he could see all his friends crying for him and even how Neji would say it was his fate to die against a genius. 'Genius…' the word rang in his mind over and over again then he was cast into his memory of when his team first met.

Flashback:

"H there my youthful comrades! I am Konoha's beautiful green beast, Guy Sensei. Now for starters I want you each to tell me your name and your dreams, you can start young one!" Guy said while motioning for Lee to start.

End Flashback:

"M-My name is Rock Lee, and my dream, n-no my ninja way is to show that someone with no genjutsu or ninjutsu can defeat a genius through hard work!"

"Sand Coffin!"

Everyone who knew of Gaara's finishing jutsu was shocked when Gaara's jutsu exploded revealing an unconscious Lee in the arms of Guy. The proctor declared victory in favor of Gaara who disappeared in a whirl of sand and reappeared in the stands next to his team. The Third Hokage waited for the medics to remove Lee from the field before speaking and having the winners of the prelims draw slots for the order of the finals, of course Naruto was the first to draw.

"Hehe, alright lucky me! I got number 7!" Naruto cheered.

"10" was all Gaara said after drawing his slot.

"Looks like your luck ran out twerp" Temari said while holding up a number 8 for the proctor to write it down.

"Number 4, well at least I won't have to wait long before my fight" Shikamaru stated in a bored tone.

"T-two" Hinata stammered out.

"Number 5" was Sakura's answer.

"3" was Shino's only response.

"1" Neji said with a small but dangerous smile on his face before turning to Naruto and reminding him of his promise that fate would not allow Hinata to pass the first round of the finals as he was her opponent.

"6" Dosu said while eyeing Sakura

"That leaves me with number 9" Sasuke said without drawing a slot as he saw no point to it.

Looking at the chart made from drawing slots the final round was set.

Round 1: Hinata Hyuga vs. Neji Hyuga.

Round 2: Shino Aburame vs. Shikamaru Nara.

Round 3: Sakura Haruno vs. Dosu.

Round 4: Naruto Uzumaki vs. Temari.

Round 5: Gaara vs. Sasuke Uchiha.

After announcing that the finals would be held in a month, the Third Hokage dismissed the finalist of the chunin exams to prepare for their next match.

Once the area was clear Jiraiya walked up to the Third with a plan in mind.

"Sarutobi Sensei, while it has been decided that Naruto would be trained by me prior to the finals I wish to pay for a month long escort of my choosing as well".

**XXXXXXX**

**Notice:** I actually read the reviews sent in. As for the Naru/Hina thing it will start during the training phase as well. Some of you are concerned as to how strong Sakura is right now in her "awakened" state, with her I was going for the bleach approach with Ichigo before training with Urahara. In this case she has the raw power but she can't use it at will. Plus c'mon she's only fought genin, if you really think she's strong now you're going to think Akatsuki is full of Gods not to mention Madara. All I ask is that you wait till they fight someone with actual talent not Orochimaru's cannon fodder or Ino.

Also I apologize for the delay, school, computer issues, reading other fanfics, and sports were the cause of that, next chapter should be out WAY sooner, I wonder what the escort is for… nah I know what it's for hehe. Oh and if there's questions I'll try and answer them I just don't know how to do that via fanfic yet.


	6. One Month

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic speech"**

'**Kyubi/demonic thoughts'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

Last Time:

Jiraiya and Tsunade agreed to take on a new student each. Jiraiya has even gone to the Hokage for a mission request, just what is going through this pervert's mind?

Chapter 6: One Month

"So then it's been decided, Jiraiya will train Naruto, Kakashi will train Sasuke, and Tsunade will train Sakura… looks like we might have a new group of Sannin when this exam is over." The third said. His hat was removed and laying on his desk next to his paper work. The three mentioned trainers stood opposite of their leader and nodded. Hiruzen then pressed a button on his desk. "You may send them in now".

It took a moment but the door to the Hokage's office opened to reveal the teens in question. Naruto for once was silent, he may act like an idiot but even he knew not to mouth off when in the same room as four people who could kill him without a second thought. Sasuke and Sakura too were silent and wondered why they were in the same room with arguably the strongest ninjas in the five nations.

"Team 7 I'd like you to meet your new trainers for this next month, feel honored as these individuals have hand-picked you to train personally." The third spoke.

"Sasuke, Kakashi has decided to train you for the next month do you accept?" When Hiruzen received a nod he handed Kakashi a scroll. Kakashi on his part walked over to Sasuke and placed a hand on the young Uchiha's shoulder "see you in a month" Kakashi stated before he and Sasuke disappeared in a whirl of leaves.

"Next is you Sakura, Tsunade believes she can help you control your new abilities. Do you accept her as a teacher?" Sakura nervously replied, she couldn't believe she was about to be trained by a Sannin let alone Tsunade who was rumored to be the most dangerous of the three. Tsunade then told Sakura where and when to meet the next day and walked out the Hokage's office.

"Naruto that leaves y" Hiruzen stopped as he noticed Naruto looked a bit depressed, when asked Naruto mentioned that Kakashi was the strongest Jonin in the village and that Sasuke was getting special treatment again.

"If anyone is getting special treatment kid it's you" Jiraiya stepped in, Naruto didn't cheer up but Jiraiya was ready for this, he knew Naruto enough now and if anything was going to motivate the kid to be his student it would be the next sentence out of his mouth. "Kakashi may know a lot of jutsu and was even trained by the Fourth Hokage, but… I was the one who trained the Fourth." Naruto's eyes went wide as saucers and his jaw dropped.

"Well Naruto do you accept?" Jiraiya asked his favorite student's son. With the confirmation the Third then signaled for the next person to enter the room. Hyuga Hiashi looked like an older version of Neji, tall, long black hair, and white eyes. The clan leader bowed before the Hokage out of respect "Why have you summoned me Sandaime-sama?"

Hiruzen's smile never faltered "Lord Hiashi, Jiraiya here has requested an escort from your clan, your daughter to be precise". Hiruzen couldn't finish as Hiashi cut him off "Absolutely not! I will not allow my daughter near that monster!" Naruto for his part felt crushed by Hiashi's words till he heard the next sentence.

"Lord Hokage surely you know what kind of smut that monster writes!" Hiashi then noticed Naruto "I assume that young Uzumaki will be on this mission as well?" once he got his reply Hiashi stood for a moment in thought. "Very well my daughter will be allowed on this mission under one condition, my daughter Hanabi will" Hiashi was then cut off by a cry of

"Old man I'm here to end your life and" the newcomer, a young boy with dark hair, long blue scarf around his neck, and a pair of goggles on his forehead stopped mid sentence as Jiraiya and Hiashi (who weren't use to the common treat of Konohamaru) sent a wave of killing intent each at the young Sarutobi. Konohamaru fell to the floor unable to stand and Jiraiya and Hiashi drooped their technique as soon as the realized it was just a child.

"As I was saying, Hinata will be allowed on this mission so long as Hanabi… and Konohamaru are taken along as well". Hiashi finished. He figured that Jiraiya couldn't do anything funny with his daughter so long as the children were present. He then looked directly at Naruto and Jiraiya

"If anything happens to my daughters I will show you that there are more things to fear than demons."

"Don't worry sir I promise not to let anyone hurt my friends, I'll risk my life to protect your daughters and Konohamaru from any enemies we might encounter believe it!" Naruto proclaimed.

"It's not enemy ninja I'm worried about." Stated Hiashi as he raised his eyes to glare at Jiraiya, the glare itself promised hell to the legendary pervert before leaving. Jiraiya on his part was hurt, did Hiashi really believe he would do those kinds of things with 13 year olds let alone place a 7 and 8 year old in the mix to make sure he couldn't? No he wouldn't do that that was a blow to his pervy pride 'if anything' he thought then he smiled 'oh Hiashi you may be a genius, but you're an idiot'. The Third Hokage cleared his throat to gain back their attention.

"Now that that's settled the children may leave as well as you Naruto" as soon as Jiraiya and the Third were alone in the room the Third pulled out a scroll. "This scroll was left for Naruto by a certain weasel, something about owing one to the boy's father." Hiruzen said with a smile "Even though you only have a month I want you to train him like your life depended on it."

"No worries there Sarutobi, when I'm done you may even be able to use the boy's surname." With that Jiraiya left the hokage tower. Hiruzen wasn't done yet he knew, "You may enter now" the Third said and with that Sakura re-entered the room. "What is it my dear?" Sarutobi said with a warm smile. Sakura hesitated but after a moment her mind was set "Hokage-sama…It's about Sasuke."

Elsewhere:

"You've been staring off into space for awhile now, could it be that you're homesick?" a tall figure with a large bandaged packed in his back, a handle stuck out from the package as if it were a sword hilt, one that seemed out of place. The only response from the shorter man was to start walking in the direction he was staring into a moment ago. "I'll take that as a yes" said the first man while smiling and showing a set of sharpened teeth in the process.

Training Day One:

0600 Konoha was woken by the sounds of various explosions off in the distance Hiruzen knew then that this month was going to cause him a lot of paper work.

Training Ground 50-same time

"Lady Tsunade I can't fight like this!" Sakura screamed as she narrowly avoided another of Tsunade's deadly strikes.

"The hell you can't, this is nothing compared to what you pulled during the preliminaries!" Tsunade yelled back as her fist created another crater "I'm just going to keep pushing you and pushing you until you can use that power at will!" and with that Tsunade charged Sakura again, even though her intent was to push Sakura, needless to say she was holding back…a lot, for Sakura her life was on the line and any small mistake on her part would leave her in the hospital for the duration of the exams if not kill her. To make matters worse the training ground was full of trees of all sizes emphasizing speed and agility and Sakura was nowhere near the level it took to fully navigate through the trees while evading Tsunade.

Training Ground 11:

Jiraiya and his students walked into the clearing to see the training ground had a medium sized lake, a small forest (relative to the one Sakura is in) and a sparing ring bordered by logs. Right behind the ring was a large gorge that fell forever in darkness.

"Listen up, the reason why I brought you all here is because this training ground was built for high level taijutsu and ninjutsu training." Jiraiya said as he made three clones. "I already saw what Naruto and Hinata were capable of during the exams, Hanabi and Konohamaru I would like you to spar with a clone so I can see what your current levels are, go all out there are no rules for the spar." The children then left with the clones while the final clone and Jiraiya stayed with Naruto and Hinata.

"Now if you will, I want you to apply chakra to these pieces of paper, they will reveal which element you have an affinity for." Jiraiya asked as he pulled out two sheets and handed them to the pre-teens. When Hinata channeled a little chakra to her paper she screamed in surprise as it turned into pure water. Jiraiya knew that only the second Hokage was able to do that and what was just as surprising was Naruto's paper as it shredded itself, 'Just like his father' thought Jiraiya, he then divided the genin for one-on-one training.

The original Jiraiya and Naruto walked further into the clearing. "Listen Naruto, There is something I must tell you before we begin your training."

Training Ground 20:

Sasuke was on the ground desperately trying to catch his breath, who knew Kakashi would push him so far the first day? It was only the first three hours and already he had copied four jutsu from Kakashi, now the insane scarecrow was pushing him hard with his speed. If this kept up for the next month screw the chunin exams, he felt he would be ready for the Jonin tests.

Training Ground 0:

A lone figure stood in the center of a clearing, surrounding him were three shadow clones, each of them wore ninja gear worn by the ANBU black ops. Training Ground 0 was a restricted training ground with a dense forest meant to keep prying eyes out, if the forest failed then the seals placed around the grounds by its last user would do the trick. All at once the clones attacked the lone man. The first clone started weaving hand seals while the other two engaged the original in taijutsu. The explosions from the taijutsu match alone would make Tsunade proud the only difference was that thanks to the seals in place no one would know he was training and there wouldn't be any extra paperwork when he got back.

In his musings the two clones that were fighting him jumped back while the first clone made his appearance "Fire Style: Dragon Flame Bullet!" as the dragon sped towards him the original could only smile 'I still got it.'

XXXXXXX

"Aaaaaagh!" Naruto screamed as he went below the lake's surface for the umpteenth time in the past ten minutes. Hinata had already mastered water walking on her first try, like it was second nature to her. Hanabi and Konohamaru were tree walking and so far Hanabi had the lead taunting Konohamaru every step of the way, neither of them were even halfway up the large tree Jiraiya had pointed them to and already a rivalry between the two had been born born.

"What happened, I thought monkeys were good at climbing trees". Hanabi chided giving Konohamaru a smirk similar to the one Neji gives to those he finds inferior. Before Konohamaru could charge the younger Hyuga he was grabbed by the clone Jiraiya had created to watch the two children.

"Listen kid, if you really want to shut her up, then just beat her to the top. If she's anything like her sister she has good chakra control but small reserves." Jiraiya said while winking at the boy hoping he would figure out what he meant.

Naruto crawled out of the lake once again and sat on the shore looking as if he were in thought.

"What's the problem kid?" the real Jiraiya asked the blond.

Naruto turned around looking at the perv. "Ever since fighting that Orochiharu guy in the forest my chakra has been acting funny and I can't even make as many clones as before."

While Jiraiya knew of the fight between team 7 and Orochimaru he had no idea that Naruto could produce more clones than the ones he created during the exams.

"First, His name is Orochimaru and second, lift up your shirt, I want to see that seal of yours." Jiraiya stated.

As Naruto did as he was told and before he could ask anything Jiraiya had jammed his fingers into Naruto's gut

"That should do it! Now try it again!" Jiraiya proclaimed as he picked up Naruto and threw him back dead center of the lake. The blond skidded across the surface tumbling and when he was finally able to stand up he started screaming.

"Are you out of your mind old man?! If I had gone under I could've…" Naruto stopped as he realized he was standing on top of the lake barely releasing as much chakra as he was earlier when trying the same exercise.

"Hey kid get back over here we need to start the next phase of training since you already wasted so much time on water walking!"

Back on shore Naruto was asked to produce as many clones as he could and Jiraiya was left speechless, the clones covered almost the entire training ground. The next sensation Jiraiya felt was his pervy sense as he now had a way to win his bet with Tsunade, 'oh it's great being a super pervert' he thought.

Jiraiya had Naruto dismiss his clones except for one, then he made his own clone and told both clones to go a fair distance away so Naruto couldn't see them. After a few minutes had passed Naruto's eyes lit up and Jiraiya asked what happened.

"I just beat you in jaken (rock, paper, scissors), and you promised you would pay for my next meal!" Naruto salivated thinking about all the ramen he could eat on the perv's account.

"Yeah yeah, now on to something more serious…listen closely."

XXXXXXX

I'm going to be honest, I had this done back in October I just felt like I should add more to make it as long as my previous chapters, sorry.

VOTE:

Should Sarutobi live?

Should Itachi live, if so should he be allowed back to Konoha?

Who should win the bet?

Finally should Naruto have a chance at learning the Hiraishin?

Next chapter? Give me 3-4 days


	7. The First Stages of Power

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic speech"**

'**Kyubi/demonic thoughts'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

Last Time:

Naruto learned the secret behind shadow clones, and the training began. Apparently Tsunade and Kakashi mean business.

Chapter 7: The First Stages of Power

'I don't believe this' Jiraiya thought to himself. The Sannin rushed Naruto again to test his theory, while the blond still fought like a brawler Jiraiya hadn't been able to land a serious hit on the young jinchuriki since they started an hour ago.

'Time to put my theory to the test' and with that Jiraiya launched at Naruto with a speed more jonin like than chunin, once again a strict taijutsu match between the two began. Jiraiya could easily dodge or counter Naruto's inexperienced attacks and again Jiraiya could easily pummel Naruto's body but whenever he went after Naruto's face, neck, heart, basically anything that could end the fight quickly Naruto would just barely dodge and attempt another counter.

'How is he doing that?' "Alright kid the match is over. I think I know enough about your taijutsu to say you fall short in all aspects except protecting your vital areas, even so if you allow the rest of your body to take as much damage as you did in our fight it's only a matter of time before your body gives out and you'll lose anyways."

"That's not fair! You were at least moving at jonin level speed, there's no way I could keep up!" Naruto yelled in his defense.

"You're a ninja brat; nothing is supposed to be fair. Do you think Konoha would've survived the last great ninja war if the fourth decided to fight fair and not use his jutsu!?" Jiraiya yelled back "You've got a lot to learn if you want to become Hokage."

"I will become Hokage!" Naruto yelled.

A week hadn't even passed yet and Jiraiya had Naruto training with no less than fifty clones broken into groups to fill in the gaps of Naruto's basic training while the original was forced to sit and meditate. While Jiraiya told him it was to help him learn new jutsu the old pervert's intent was to shut Naruto's mouth for a few moments and so he could sneak away and get some "research" done. Today was slightly different because Jiraiya's conscience was getting the better of him and so he decided to spar with Naruto and while the blonde's abilities showed some hope, hope wasn't something Jiraiya liked to rely on.

XXXXXXX

"SHUT UP!" he couldn't take it, those kids were annoying him to no end. Hanabi and Konohamaru had finally made it to the top of the tree Jiraiya had pointed out to them a few days ago and for the past ten minutes had been arguing over who made it first.

"Look you two made it at the same time so as it stands the two of you are even, Konohamaru has more chakra and therefore he could repeatedly go at it with less rest while your reserves are low but your control makes up for it…but if you want you two can have a quick match to see who is better." Jiraiya's clone said with a concealed smile.

It only took a few seconds before the two of them were ready to go at it, both still breathing hard from racing each other up the tree. 'They asked for it' Jiraiya thought before dropping his hand to start the match and as his hand fell so did his charges due to exhaustion.

"Well that's that." Jiraiya said with a big smile on his face and went to do what his original self could not do…today's research.

XXXXXXX

While Naruto, Konohamaru, and Hanabi were coming along better than Jiraiya first thought Hinata was far behind and going nowhere fast. Jiraiya couldn't figure it out; she had more chakra than her sister, even better control, and the flexibility to make her one of the strongest fighters in her clan, yet she hesitated to fight. Even though Hinata wasn't at all connected to his bet with Tsunade he still connected with the girl as he noticed her crush on the blond loudmouth called Naruto. He wanted to help the poor girl out one way or another, one was to make her strong enough so that they could be together (and as Naruto's godfather he really liked the idea) but as it stood he would have to discourage the young princess like everyone else did, otherwise she could be a weakness used against his godson.

Jiraiya looked up from his musings to watch Hinata strike the training post once again, her movements were precise, rough, and firm, characteristics that did not match the young girl at all. Then it came to him.

"Hinata let's call it a day and get some rest, I have something I want you to start on tomorrow." Jiraiya said with a hint of interest in his voice, then he noticed Hinata's face that showed her feelings of failure as she headed back to their camp. 'If things work out then she won't have that face when we're done tomorrow,' with that thought Jiraiya's second clone dispersed itself.

XXXXXXX

"You're back earlier than expected" It was well into the night, all that could be made out were shadows yet this individual's presence was unmistakable.

"…" his covered figured had mastered secrecy and deception at such a young age that the only ones that could hear him were those he chose, in most cases that was the last warning they got before their death.

"If you're not here for him then…" the question was in mid sentence but the other man had already begun answering.

"…"

"I see, if I know my old teammate we may need you…"

"…"it was slight, nigh detectable, but with age comes experience and the older man noticed the slight twitch in the younger man's eyes showing that his vision had lapsed for a second while answering.

"If nothing else she may be able to help." the older man closed his eyes thinking about the team of his past while he spoke, when he reopened his eyes his acquaintance was nowhere to be found.

Looking down at his camp the older man was lost in thought; for once it wasn't his past that his mind ran to but the future, the future that the current generation could bring about.

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Today he was going to put his plan into action, he was sure it would work, if everything went to plan the shy Hyuga heiress would become a strong fighter in no time. What impressed the pervert even more was that he got to have some fun while he was at it (not research). He had split off two clones, one for Hanabi and Konohamaru to train separately so they wouldn't kill each other while the original walked with Naruto and Hinata towards the lake in the training ground.

"Jiraiya! We already know how to walk on water!" Naruto yelled when he realized their heading

"Shut it kid, today you're going to help me train Hinata, but first I want you to make two clones and read this, don't worry, it's a jutsu, one that I think you could put to use some day. Just make sure your clones practice a good distance away." Jiraiya said as he handed Naruto a scroll which he took and read with excitement, but when he saw what the jutsu did he was shocked that Jiraiya would allow him to learn something so dangerous. Jiraiya seeing the blonde's confused face spoke again.

"You are to only have two clones work on this at a time and yes, you are going to learn THAT, the previous user is one of the strongest ninjas I know and before he handed that scroll to me he asked me to teach it to you specifically. Don't bother asking who; just know that you have some "friends" in high places." Jiraiya ended with a smirk

Jiraiya then went on to explain Hinata's training or the jest of it to both his charges, While Hinata trained her taijutsu Naruto was to maintain control of his chakra and feed Jiraiya's system with a steady flow once he had Hinata started. Of course neither had a clue as to what he was really planning.

"Alright Hinata I want you to stand here and focus on both the surface you're standing on and your surroundings, without using your eyes." Jiraiya said this in the middle of the lake standing next to Hinata.

"One more thing if you feel any pressure telling you to move you should probably go with it". As he said it he turned and headed back to the shore and Naruto, he then sat near the edge and dipped his finger into the lake, before Naruto could ask he saw Jiraiya focus some chakra and motioned for the blond to both be quiet and to look over at his friend.

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Hinata for her part was enjoying the cool breeze and felt calmness wash over her as she pushed her senses into the lake. She could feel the flow of water and the rhythm it created, just as she was about to be lost in her current state she felt and odd feeling telling her, almost softly, to step back which like Jiraiya had instructed earlier she did, just a second before a stream of water came jetting out the spot where her foot just was, unknown to her.

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"Cool!" Naruto screamed although not at a level to where Hinata could hear him, he then looked back at Jiraiya who again told him to stay quiet and watch.

As Naruto turned back to watch Hinata, Jiraiya went back to work. At first he started slowly but as he noticed the ease at which Hinata was maneuvering away from his attacks he decided to get even faster launching stream after stream trying to knock Hinata off balance and failing. After about a half hour he started teaching Naruto how to transfer his chakra at a safe level into others being the test subject himself. While Naruto did better than Jiraiya expected there were still slight burst, however any chakra Jiraiya received from the boy went straight into his jutsu training Hinata, which had now gone up to the point where Hinata looked as if she were in a life and death battle except had no concern for fighting back, Jiraiya had half-heartedly pinned her a few times only to be thwarted by the girl's flexibility.

XXXXXXX

Hinata for her part was truly lost in her own enjoyment, she remembered she was in the middle of some training but as long as Jiraiya hadn't asked her to stop she wouldn't. She could feel her own reactions to this invisible partner dancing with her and had at some point earlier pictured it to be Naruto fighting her with the sole intention of her dodging his strikes, yet in Hinata's own way she pictured the two of them dancing.

XXXXXXX

Everything happens for a reason, but that still doesn't mean it can't scare you half to death. While Naruto and Jiraiya were watching Hinata's nearly flawless demonstration both of them had allowed their focus to slip which resulted in Naruto accidentally sending a large surge of chakra into Jiraiya's system. Because Jiraiya wasn't as focused on limiting the amount of chakra going into his jutsu, all the extra chakra from Naruto went right into it. As effects took place both males watched in horror as the simple jutsu took the form of ten water dragons. All ten water dragons surrounded Hinata's small and helpless form before all at once diving at the poor girl.

Before the old pervert could even move the dragons were on Hinata and the only hope of her survival rested on the boy who had somehow crossed half the distance between him and Hinata in almost an instant.

XXXXXXX

Hinata was nearing the end of her imaginary fight with Naruto who had made a mass of shadow clones to surround her, at first she was scared that her crush would go too far with his attack but what he said next gave her more confidence to fight back then ever.

"We made a promise; I know you can do it Hinata-chan". And with that the boy and his clones rushed the young woman, just as the first clone was about to make contact he noticed Hinata's smile and in turn he smiled back before he and the rest of the clones followed through with their attack.

"Eight Trigrams…" came the whisper

XXXXXXX

The real Naruto was in a blind sprint desperately trying to reach Hinata before it was too late. Jiraiya on the other hand watched with his eyes out of their sockets as he was witnessing the sight before him, it was more interesting than his research, more suicidal than pissing off a drunk Tsunade, and even more unbelievable than his previous student's Rinnegan. What Jiraiya witnessed was the use of a clan's ultimate defensive technique and, if he had to guess, a 4th Hokage level shunpo produced by the two children who were considered dead last.

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"Rotation!". Was the last thing Jiraiya and Naruto heard as the dragons collided with Hinata, at first there was nothing, then in the middle of the dragons' feast a shimmer of light appeared and grew forming a small tornado-like dome that stopped the dragons in their tracks and destroyed them. 'Incredible' Jiraiya thought then as he looked for the blond he found him already holding the girl who had passed out from chakra exhaustion, what shocked the hermit even more was that Naruto's movement from the shore to the middle of the lake could've been described as a blur. 'How did he?' Jiraiya's thoughts were short lived as both his charges started to sink below the surface and it was his job to fish them out.

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Two weeks before the finals:

Jiraiya thought he had struck gold when he started Hinata's knew training almost four weeks ago, in reality he had struck diamonds. At first it seemed to fail when Hinata wasn't as confident when she could actually see the attacks, however that only lasted until Naruto returned from his training and gave the Hyuga heir some words of encouragement, from that point on Jiraiya had the two train in the same area with the exception of the fifty Naruto clones that Jiraiya had mandated Naruto to train with. The only downside was that neither of his students remembered anything about the water dragon incident and both thought they had passed out from chakra exhaustion. Because of Hinata's affinity to water dogging the attacks became something close to a second nature to her and her movements became more fluid to match her natural characteristics.

Today Jiraiya started his next phase in training Hinata, both she and Naruto were on the sparing field near the lake Hinata had been training on. Their purpose was obviously to spar except Jiraiya had a few rules. The first was that each fighter could only fight the way he said they could, the second was that if Naruto couldn't maintain his fifty clones while fighting he would lose.

The match started out with taijutsu, Naruto had his reasons for not summoning clones in this fight and other than gentle fist Hinata had no real jutsu of her own. When the two clashed Hinata had been aiming a hesitant jab at Naruto's kidney which Naruto dodged and threw a fist of his own as a counter. Hinata in mid panic of being hit was surprised as her body seemingly reacted on its own just narrowly avoiding Naruto's fist.

Jiraiya watched to fight continue with interest, he was glad to see that Naruto's style had become more refined and was now considered passable for taijutsu while Hinata's training had made it so that her body would react on its own thanks to her subconscious treating Naruto's attacks like the streams of water Jiraiya had trained her with, he was glad he attacked from all angles to force her to both be flexible and aware of other attacks. So it was no surprise to Jiraiya that Naruto was unable to land a hit on Hinata granted he was holding back. At this point he decided to change the roles of offense and defense.

"Hinata, I want you to attack Naruto, Naruto for now I want you to try to avoid or block her attacks." And with that Naruto's attacks stopped and Hinata looked hesitant. During the past couple of weeks Hinata's taijutsu training was lacking if non-existent. As she moved to change her stance Jiraiya stopped her saying that he wanted her to focus more on attacking than what her clan had thought her.

Once again Jiraiya watched and while he noticed Naruto's improvement with taijutsu he was still a bit rough on defense. Hinata on the other hand struggled at first but sure enough her movement became more relaxed, she didn't want to hurt Naruto so, like her crush, she was pulling her punches even though she wasn't using her gentle fist to begin with. After a few moments of this, Jiraiya became annoyed at the pulled punches and called a small timeout to change the fighters' tactics. Both were to go on the offensive fighting him and a clone he made. As a side note he reminded each who the other was to fight in the finals and that any openings he saw he would go after. Jiraiya explained that it was better for him to do it than both finding out their weaknesses the hard way during the finals. With that the group began.

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One week later:

Kakashi looked at the last loyal Uchiha "Looks like you're limited to two uses either way you look at it. The good news is that we still have a week left". Sasuke was once again on the ground exhausted. Sure Kakashi had thought him more than a dozen jutsu which he could use with little effort but once he pulled out his strongest ones he was out of chakra in minutes.

"Tomorrow I'll let you use your sharingan while we train." Kakashi mentioned as a side note before leaning against a tree and pulling out his favorite orange book.

It was a rule from day one that Sasuke wasn't allowed to use his bloodline while training because Kakashi didn't want Sasuke relying on it for every battle.

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Two days before the finals:

Hiruzen along with a majority of the Anbu Black Ops were speeding towards training ground 50 after witnessing a large explosion, when the group arrived they were shocked to see a laughing Tsunade healing a battle scared Sakura.

"I think we can say that your training was successful, but definitely not complete". The older woman mentioned to her student.

Hiruzen could only palm his face knowing what kind of paperwork this was going to cause.

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The last day:

Naruto was walking through the streets of Konoha, much like any other day the villagers looked at him with disgust. The only comfort Naruto had was that he at least knew why now. The only reason he was in the village in the first place was because Jiraiya had given his students the final day off. In Naruto's case though, Jiraiya thought it would be best that he at least kept twenty clones actively training. So the blonde wandered aimlessly, he would've gone to Ichiraku's but it was closed in preparation for the Finals. Eventually he made his way back home.

"**Finally!**" a demonic voice shouted as Naruto entered his front door and with a burst of power his door slammed shut and Naruto fell unconscious.

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Sorry! I got half way through this chapter and decided to leave out the Naru/Hina thing for another chapter or two, you'll see why later.

And next time…

Hinata vs. Neji


	8. Fate vs Will

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic speech"**

'**Kyubi/demonic thoughts'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

To "**The Pirate on wheels**" and "**ThunderGod Stormbringer**" If you're still reading this give me till chapter 10 to work out the bugs. Thanks for the heads up.

Last Time:

The training has ended and Naruto was knocked unconscious by a demonic entity. What will happen to Naruto? And how will Hinata handle her cousin Neji? Only time will tell.

Chapter 8: Fate vs. Will

After practically living in a forest for the past month Hinata's home seemed somewhat boring to the young heir. Hanabi wasn't constantly fighting with Konohamaru and Hinata's favorite past time of spying on Naruto during his training was brought to an end, at least for now.

"Hinata Hyuga!" at the sound of her name being called Hinata's focus came back to the present. The crowd loudly cheered for the young girl, Shikamaru and Shino both sparred a glance of recognition while Neji shot her a glare of disgust. None of that mattered to Hinata though, the only thought on her mind was the location of her crush, 'did he oversleep? Did something happen to him? Did he give up? No he promised me he would never give up.' While her worry hadn't faded Hinata looked forward believing the blond would show up.

Once the introductions were over and Hiruzen officially started the final round of the Chunin exams those not fighting in the first round were ushered into the stands to watch.

Hinata and Neji stood in the ring and while Neji only glared at her Hinata was busy scanning the crowd. She had already found where her father was sitting and to her surprise her sister was also present. The rest of the rookies who didn't make it past the prelims were all together as well. Everyone she knew was at the arena including Konohamaru who begged his grandfather to let him watch. Everyone was there except the blond she admired so much. As her eyes crossed the participants' section she realized something else, Sasuke was also missing.

"It is because of fate that you stand no chance of winning and should therefore forfeit. Do you understand now?" Neji asked after his long speech about destiny and his curse.

Hinata, in her innocence and search for Naruto had missed nearly all of Neji's speech and in the end could only respond in one way.

"I-I'm sorry, did you say something Neji?" Hinata's question got three reactions, one was shock from those who knew her, another was laughter from Hanabi and Konohamaru, and the last was rage provided by none other than Neji himself. With no warning Neji charged his cousin with the intent to not only win, but to do as much damage as he could.

The crowd at the chunin exam was silent as the two Hyugas fought. Neji charged Hinata with a mad look in his eye and just as he was about to make contact Hinata dodged to the side just enough for Neji's strike to harmlessly pass by her. This unexpected escape was followed by many more as Neji pushed his attack. Just before the heiress took a hit to her chest she flipped backwards as to avoid Neji's attack and in the same motion sent a chakra loaded kick towards Neji's forehead to which the latter managed to escape by jumping back. Hinata had gotten faster and it was adding to Neji's annoyance.

"Hinata, I'm giving you this last chance to give up. Your destiny is to lose this battle." The boy stated as he landed.

While Hinata hadn't been paying much attention to her cousin during his rant earlier she did remember picking up on a few pieces of it and it bothered her.

"Despite what you think Neji, people can change. You are proving that fact yourself. You have surpassed most of the main branch in our family's style, you're the only branch member in a genin cell rather than in the ranks to protect the main house, and you hide your seal. How can you talk so surely about fate when you are the one fighting it hardest of all?" It was then that Hinata noticed her stutter was gone. Her past month with Naruto and Jiraiya had done more for her than she thought.

"You don't know anything!" Neji yelled his anger finally getting the better of him. He was stronger and knew his family's taijutsu better than Hinata yet she was much faster and more flexible. His counters were negated because of her speed and her counters were rendered useless to his skill. This battle really was one of wills and not of power. Then Hinata did something unexpected, she left her juken stance and settled for a more relaxed one.

"What are you doing?" Neji asked perplexed at Hinata's stance.

"I'm defying your claim of fate. All Hyugas use juken, it's their fate as you would put it. This style fits me better. You said I was fated to lose, I'm going to win and I promise I'll free you of your FATE whether you like it or not!" Hinata's emphasis on fate made Neji flinch yet true to form only those that knew the young man saw it. Then Hinata did the one thing no one would ever do (except Naruto), the once shy heiress rushed her cousin intent on bringing the fight to him.

"When did Hinata learn to fight like that?" was one of the many questions that were flying around the arena. The rookie nine minus Hinata, Naruto, and Sasuke were on their feet cheering loudly along with the rest of the crowd for the young woman pushing her older cousin back in their deadly taijutsu battle. Neji couldn't handle Hinata's speed and every time there was an opening it was closed. That was all Neji could take, if Hinata wouldn't give any openings then he would make one.

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Almost a week ago:

Jiraiya landed on the ground with a thump before dispelling in front of Hinata. The young woman's right arm was still forward ending in an open palm while her left was extended straight, palm flat, towards the sky. Her new style was something else and while it wasn't completely different from her normal juken it did combine her natural talents with her fighting. All that was left for the young heiress was to finish her second original jutsu and she would be ready to face her cousin.

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Naruto:

Naruto slowly woke, he would have easily slept an hour or two longer but the incessant banging on the wall nearby finally forced him out of his sleep.

"What the hell!" Naruto screamed. his rant was caught short as he stood near a gate with a large eye no more than 5 feet from his own staring back at him. It was then that he realized where he was and before he could retreat to a safe distance the Kyubi's chakra had him pinned.

"What do you want?" the boy choked out.

"**Relax, I've decided to help out with your training" **the fox said calming Naruto down a little. The blond was still on guard though since the Kyubi's chakra was still holding him in place

"What kind of training?"

"**I'll get to that, first I want to know why you're still playing the idiot and holding back. Jiraiya told you the first day of training that there are S-class nins out there waiting to capture me and kill you in the process. Do you want to be able to put up a fight and maybe save those around you or do you just want to die? **The Kyubi barked, angry that the vessel that caged him was close to useless in a fight. The demon, at the end of his rant, finally looked down at the boy to see him staring back intently at the demon lord.

"I am taking this seriously, Pervy Sage said to use fifty clones for training everyday but I've been using double. I've already mastered making clones without seals and that crazy jutsu some guy named Weasel left for me to the same extent. I even…" at this point Kyubi decided to spare himself the rant and just fished through Naruto's memory of the last month that was equivalent to almost 8.5 years and while Naruto didn't have a large list of jutsu at his disposal (Due to Jiraiya planning on having Naruto train for "four years" to catch up to his classmates) what he did have he mastered and was well on his way to mastering his wind chakra. When the Kyubi left Naruto's memories he noticed Naruto was still going over what his clones had learned.

"**Enough, I get it already. I may have a jutsu for you but first you have to be able to use Weasel's jutsu with a kunai, you have one day to learn this and you can only use one hundred clones. Secondly you have until the start of your match to lose the orange jumpsuit and look like a real ninja otherwise I'll stunt your growth for another thirteen years." **The Kyubi threatened.

Naruto was a little taken back but the idea of using Weasel's jutsu on a kunai seemed cool and any jutsu from the lord of all demons was sure to be useful against Akatsuki.

"**One last thing, you've had about nine years of training so I expect you to start acting more like a ninja and less of a loud mouthed idiot." **The Kyubi added in as part of his deal before ejecting Naruto back into the world of the living.

Naruto was out of the door as soon as he woke up. Naruto's alarm told him it was 1030 and that the exam ceremony had started about 30 minutes ago with maybe about the last fifteen spent with fighting. Upon reaching the street Naruto made a hundred and one clones while he himself henged into a civilian and went through the market section of Konoha. His time was short and he knew it.

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The Stadium

Neji ducked under Hinata's strike he could see with his byakugan that her newest technique would be bad if it hit him. The "Gentle Step: Twin Lions Fist" as his cousin called the technique came to life just as he was about to forgo his defense and go back on the offensive, now he was making sure that no part of that attack actually connected with him. To the young man's ire he realized that Hinata had pushed him back to the wall of the arena. Once Hinata had her cousin pinned she went in for the finish while pulling some chakra out of her attack, she didn't want her cousin dying because of an over powered strike.

The crowd watched as the attack came within an inch of Neji's calm and calculating face and stop cold. Hinata knew exactly what stopped her attack but was too late to escape Neji's rotation which had enough force to blow her back into the arena.

Neji rose up once completing his kaiten. He had pushed as much chakra into it as he could, sure he had overpowered his dome but the young genius had hoped to kill Hinata's confidence by his sheer display of power.

Hinata was hurting all over yet she slowly stood wincing as she felt the multiple bruises she had received from her cousin's kaiten and the cuts that she gained from sliding along the ground before she came to a stop. The kaiten was designed to repel multiple objects or opponents at once, when the attack was used on a single person the defensive move became a powerful offense only offset by how much chakra it used.

"This is your last chance to give up Hinata-_sama._" Neji spat, this was his show of mercy and he hoped the young girl declined so that he could pay her back for her insolence.

"I…will not…not until I show you t…that fate does not rule us." Was the answer Neji heard through forced breaths.

"You're in range of my divination." Neji said with a small smile before rushing in the finish his cousin.

Up in the stands Hiashi had lost count to how many times he had been shocked in this match. Both fighters were going beyond his expectations and even Hanabi watched in awe beside him. For the two of them to go so far was amazing, yet he feared for his daughter's life once Neji called out his last attack.

Once Hinata had heard her cousin's declaration her old personality took over, her guard was down, and she once again saw herself as weak. To Hinata's fortune her byakugan was still active and she could easily see a bright blue light coming from the roof of the stands, the light wasn't as bright as normal so her guess was that the source was a clone. Nonetheless on top of the stands stood Naruto Uzumaki, her secret crush, her drive, and in this instant her savior. The clone gave her Naruto's smile a true smile and a nod that said "remember your promise."

'I won't lose here Naruto-kun I promise!' Hinata thought to herself before she re-focused on her cousin.

Neji watched as Hinata fell into her depressed state but it vanished before he could fully enjoy it. Her spirit to fight was back but it didn't matter Neji had already closed the distance between him and his cousin.

"Eight Trigrams: Two palms!" Came the cry. Every Hyuga present minus the two in the ring watched with eyes wide as a branch member attempted the main branch's most notable technique next to the kaiten. Neji's strikes struck home closing two of Hinata's tenketsu.

"Four palms!" This time Neji's path was blocked as Hinata's hands passed in front of Neji's strikes in their wake a stream of chakra was left effectively repelling Neji's attack. Still Neji was determined and pushed to finish his attack and the match.

"Eight palms!" again Neji's attack was blocked.

"Sixteen palms!" 'What is this feeling' Neji thought as his attack was blocked again.

"Thirty-two palms!" All his strikes were negated and his finger tips were going numb.

"Sixty-four palms!" Neji was straining his vision looking through the bright chakra lines to his cousin's tenketsu. Once again his attacks were stopped. In the final assault though Neji with wide eyes realized what was so familiar about Hinata's defense, it resembled the kaiten.

"No you don't!" Hinata cried out as Neji was about to jump back. In a flash Hinata had caught Neji in her defensive technique that instantly became an offensive one. Neji could only watch as the streams of chakra slammed into his body while closing off his tenketsu in every pass.

"Protection Eight Trigrams: Sixty-four palms!" Hinata said aloud as the last stream sent Neji flying a few feet back.

"H-how?" Neji asked, his breathing was short and his vision was blurring.

"You, father,…and the rest of the clan have all said that I would never be strong enough. My own sister has beaten me countless times in spars." At this the crowd was silent listening intently.

"Juken or rather the gentle fist is the worst taijutsu match up for me. You said destiny can't be changed? You should be able to change your fate easier than I did…since you were never a failure like me." Hinata sadly stated.

"P-proctor" Neji called "I can't continue, I admit defeat at the hands of a worthy opponent" Neji said with a small smile as a few tears rolled down the sides of his face.

"Winner: Hyuga Hinata!" Genma called as the stands went wild. Hiashi and his youngest daughter wore a smile of pride. Hinata on the other hand stood where she was, stunned by Neji's acknowledgement, she had finally earned his respect and it was thanks to Naruto being there for her. She looked in the direction she had last seen the clone when the clone realized she was looking at him he gave her a warm smile before disappearing sending its memories to the original.

The medics came in to pick Neji up while Hinata was allowed to return to the stands shortly after a quick scan showing no real injuries and the medics healed her in no time. When she made it back to the stands the next two fighters were in the ring ready.

"Round Two of the Finals: Shino Aburame vs. Shikamaru Nara!"

At the announcement Ino could have sworn she heard her pineapple headed teammate say something along the lines of…

"Troublesome".

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A/N

Alright going to finish writing chapter 9 by the weekend.

ONCE MORE IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE STORY, STOP READING AND/OR WRITE YOUR OWN.


	9. Quick Wits and New Arrivals

I do not own Naruto

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

"**Kyubi/demonic speech"**

'**Kyubi/demonic thoughts'**

_**Merged thoughts/speech**_

Please wait for team 7 to actually fight before saying I used the 'month' to overpower Sakura…and the other two.

I should get a chapter out at least once a month.

Last Time:

Hinata Won! Hinata Won! Next up Shikamaru and Shino, the strategists battle… this might be what bleeding to death through a paper cut feels like…

Here we go!

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Chapter 9: Quick Wits and New Arrivals

"Round 2: Nara Shikamaru vs. Shino Aburame…Begin!" with his announcement Genma jumped back expecting the two to clash immediately, however neither boy moved. Instead Shino decided to speak before acting.

"I'm to assume that given this month you've done nothing but watch clouds, however I know that you've been thinking up several different ways to combat me and my bug colonies. Am I correct?"

"Nope, just been watching the clouds." was Shikamaru's reply. He had a habit and he liked it, still cloud watching did have its benefits.

"Very well… no more talking then." With that Shino's kikaichu flew from his sleeves on a direct path towards Shikamaru before forming a dome around the shadow user.

"That's it, call the match." Tsunade said. She and Jiraiya were sitting with the Hokage and Kazekage in the stands. "There's no way a Nara could beat an Aburame."

"I wouldn't bet on it. It may be an unfair matchup but as I've said before the will of fire burns bright in this generation. You may be in for a surprise if you watch long enough." The Hokage replied to his student. Unknown to the Hokage and Sannin the Kazekage had his own thoughts. 'Oh dear Tsunade-hime, the old man is right, there will be a surprise. One you won't forget.'

Shino could tell something was off, at first his bug ball technique acted as it normally would then the swirling mass of bugs stopped. As he watched the jutsu crumbled his kikaichu fell harmlessly to the ground into a pattern resembling a spider's web around Shikamaru.

"What did you do?" Shino asked with a visible eyebrow over the rim of his shades.

Shikamaru's answer came off as a matter of fact. "Did you know that every object cast a shadow when it is close to an object? Your bugs are small enough that they don't cast significant shadows while flying but when they land their shadow appears like any other object. Unfortunately, for your bugs to work they have to be attached to me. Do the math."

Shino looked once more at the web design under Shikamaru and on close inspection he found that his bugs were indeed frozen in Shikamaru's shadow, the main binding for the web.

"I know you're not a fan of losing members from your colony so I'll just leave them here." Shikamaru as he stepped away from the trapped bugs, his shadow clearly leaving the shadow possessed swarm and yet none of the trapped kikaichu moved an inch. Shikamaru for his part did look a little winded and Shino could hear him mutter something like "I'm not doing that again".

Before Shino could make an attempt at explaining Shikamaru's new technique, he had to evade a fast moving shadow courtesy of Shikamaru.

And that how the battle went. Shino having just enough time to avoid another shadow every time he landed but it was enough time to allow for him to release a few bugs here and there. Like Temari, who was closely watching up in the stands, Shino had already learned the range Shikamaru could extend his shadow and had found the one area where Shikamaru couldn't reach him in his current position.

A few more steps and Shino would be in the clear for his counter. Shino's swarm was already in position to attack Shikamaru all at once. Sure the shadow user could freeze his bugs but it would take a lot of chakra to take them all down, considering that Shikamaru was breathing hard after extending his shadow so many times, Shino was confident that this battle between the two trap users would be over as soon as he landed after his last leap.

As soon as Shino landed his bug army rose on either side of Shikamaru resembling a pair of inescapable walls, true to Shino's prediction Shikamaru used his shadow to catch them all. Unfortunately, Shino also noticed that he himself could not move.

Shikamaru took Shino's confused expression as a sign to start explaining.

"Man I thought you were never going to get over there." Shikamaru started as he walked towards Shino. "Don't worry too much I can only hold you for a few more seconds anyways. You should be able to look at where you are standing now though". Shino followed the suggestion but still couldn't see the problem. That is until he noticed a thin line between him and Shikamaru get thicker.

"It's… a jutsu that requires a bit more chakra than the standard shadow mimic jutsu, but I can still manage it." The shadow user was clearly out of breath now. "Basically I use the shadows around me to extend the range of my own".

It was now that Shino realized that Shikamaru had shown him his range just so he would feel secure enough to launch a large attack and that Shikamaru used the mass of shadows created by his bugs to catch him. The match was over and Shikamaru was the clear winner. Before Shino had full movement though Shikamaru did the unexpected and told the proctor that he quit as he was out of Chakra to hold Shino or the bugs much longer.

Winner of Round 2: Shino Aburame

Up in the stands Temari was particularly upset, the bug user had done exactly what she would've and not only did he get caught, he lost, and still the shadow user forfeited the win to him. She couldn't help but think of how she would have reacted had it been her that lost to that kid.

The Third Hokage was currently gazing at Tsunade who had a look of shock on her face. Sure she had called Shino's victory but anyone could tell that the fight had been Shikamaru's win. Jiraiya too was impressed by the planning laid out by the two combatants. The fight before did show some talent but it took more than that to be a chunin. Once more Jiraiya knew that Hinata wouldn't have won if her opponent hadn't lost his cool or the surprise of the girl's defensive jutsu. Without that combination working against him, Neji would've been the winner.

"Jiraiya, Where is Naruto"? The Third asked. He had noticed the clone earlier during the Hyuga's match.

"He's probably too afraid to fight". Tsunade interjected. She hadn't been too impressed by what she heard about the young trouble maker and found it hard to believe that he was the son of Minato.

"Trust me Naruto isn't the type to skip a fight. If anything you can count on his match to be interesting". Jiraiya commented back. He knew Tsunade was deliberately rude in order to get a rise out of him or to get him to spill something about Naruto's training but he wasn't budging. Honestly, even he didn't know what Naruto could do at the moment because he kept sending clones out in secret and one person could not account for hundreds.

Temari landed in the stage using her fan as a lift once her name was called. Naruto on the other hand was nowhere to be seen. Genma, noticing the absent genin felt a little disappointed at what the daring kid would do against the sound genin but his orders were absolute and no exceptions were given.

"Winner of the forth match…" It was at this point that Genma was forced to stop. The wind picked up and blew leaves around the center of the arena close to where both he and Temari stood. Just as quickly as the wind storm began it died, however it did leave behind three figures standing back to back. The tallest one was Kakashi Hatake who sported his normal ninja gear and chunin vest, he also had his orange book out and appeared to not be interested in the world around him. The second tallest, though noticeably shorter than Kakashi, was Sasuke Uchiha, he wore a dark cloak made for travel the robe also doubled to hide anything that Sasuke was wearing underneath.

I good portion of Sasuke's more mature fan girls suffered a nose bleed when their minds wandered as to what he could be wearing under the cloak.

The third figure sported blonde hair and had whisker marks on his cheeks. The being that held the contempt of nearly every adult in the village wore a cloak that was shaded a light grey and made to look like a twin of Sasuke's cloak. This individual was Naruto Uzumaki.

Naruto made his way to his starting point only after whispering a thank you to both Sasuke and Kakashi for their help. He knew that Temari's range gave her an advantage over the old him but now he wasn't sure if it mattered. He felt ready and beneath his cloak his hands were twitching with excitement.

The instant Naruto stopped moving both Kakashi and Sasuke had vanished from the stage only to reappear in the waiting box.

After the small interruption, Genma glanced towards to Hokage who in turn nodded his head to continue.

"Due to Naruto Uzumaki arriving before the match was officially called in favor to Temari of the Sand. The fourth match will proceed as planned!" Genma's voice rang over the crowd.

"Naruto Uzumaki of the Leaf and Temari of the Sand…Begin!"

XXXXXXX

(A/N – Shikamaru's "Shadow Web" is a move that I believe the trap master should have and will have in the story. As long as there is enough chakra used, any shadow and by proxy any being that is caught by Shikamaru's shadow can be immobilized even after Shikamaru's shadow has retreated. For now this ability can only be used on small creatures such as kikaichu that do not possess any real physical power.)

Next time: Team 7 Takes the Stage.

Further limits will be made in the next chapter…


End file.
